


merciless

by misszuipperips



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Body Horror, Brainwashing, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Original Character Death(s), Post-Recall, Stockholm Syndrome, Talon brainwashes Mercy, Talon!Mercy, Threats of Violence, Torture, Unreliable Narrator, devil!Mercy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 03:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 28,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7601464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misszuipperips/pseuds/misszuipperips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mercy doesn't immediately respond to the recall of Overwatch, choosing instead to continue her work in the Middle East. This is where Talon finds her and does to her what they did to Widowmaker. As a member of Talon, Mercy continues her work in a new outfit and without any memories of her work as Dr. Angela Ziegler.<br/>Inevitably it all goes a bit south once the now reformed Overwatch finds out what's happened to her.</p><p>(basically a fic inspired by Mercy's devil skin and my imagining a potential backstory for why she looks so edgy in that skin lmao)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

After Overwatch had been disbanded, Angela knew her work was not done. While she was not legally allowed to operate as Mercy since they ruled it illegal for Overwatch to operate, she still kept her Valkyrie suit and her Caduceus staff and took it upon herself to go and help tend to the wounded wherever she could find them. By the time that Winston (because it had to be him—every other agent had disappeared in the messy fallout of Overwatch crumbling) activated the recall for Overwatch agents, she was in the Middle East.

She knew that they would need her help as their medic, but she also knew that the rest of the world needed her. She tried to tell herself that maybe it was some kind of trap—a plan to root out any former agents still willing to defy the law and then arrest them—but too much time had passed for this line of thought to be reasonable. Angela sighed as she made her way to the medbay she’d set up, knowing all too well that the reason she was trying to think of excuses was that she didn’t want to go back.

It wasn’t like she had suddenly decided that the UN were right in disbanding Overwatch, but she just… didn’t want to have to see everyone again and find out how many more had died or gone astray since the explosion. So she rationalised her not responding immediately by telling herself that she’d wait until she was finished here, and then she’d respond and return to Overwatch. They’d understand—she was, first and foremost, a doctor. This was what she was meant to do.

But as the days passed, Angela’s excuses were getting flimsier and flimsier. She’d set up enough of a medbay and gathered enough resources and people for her work to be considered done. Yet as she looked at the active recall notification on her phone whenever she had the time, she still couldn’t convince herself to leave. She’d already stayed here this long— _a couple more days couldn’t hurt_ , she thought to herself as she slipped her phone away and grabbed her staff. _These people need me just as much as Overwatch does_.

Since it had been such a long time since her active work at Overwatch, she’d grown used to the lessened need to be constantly wary. While her work was still dangerous, she wasn’t in an immediate threat every time she left to go help people. She’d grown unused to mission circumstances, where she had to be constantly flying to her team and keeping them alive. As such, it didn’t occur to her that she’d be safer with Overwatch (as much as they would endanger her) than staying in one spot where they couldn’t actively reach her. While Angela buried herself in her work in her medbay, other organisations became aware of the recall of Overwatch agents. One of those organisations being Talon—and since Reaper had already been sent to try and get the locations of former Overwatch agents, it was an obvious decision to hunt down those that hadn’t responded to the recall yet and take them out before moving onto those active within the reformed Overwatch.

Reaper’s attempted hacking of the Overwatch servers hadn’t been as much of a failure as his superiors had expected—while most of what they could get from the USB was only partial transfers, they were able to tear that information apart to get regions of areas where they expected former agents to be. While they sent off lesser agents (cannon fodder, if you will) to former Overwatch bases keep track of which Overwatch agents had been sighted, they sent off Reaper and more capable agents to the Middle East to try and hunt down the renowned Doctor Angela Ziegler. After all, Talon could always use someone like her to keep their own agents alive—and wouldn’t it be just as much of a betrayal as turning poor Amélie into Widowmaker to turn the good doctor against Overwatch?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mercy gets taken ruh roh shaggy

Find a battle and you’ll find Mercy. It wasn’t exactly difficult for Talon to track down where she was holed up, because they knew (or at the very least, Reaper knew and the rest of the agents just shut up and agreed with him) that all they’d have to do would be to find a battlefield and wait for her to swoop in and try to save people. Besides, a woman literally flying onto the battlefield in a Valkyrie suit and a staff that shoots out light wasn’t exactly inconspicuous—without the rest of Overwatch to protect her, this would be all too easy to steal her away.

Although Reaper’s initial idea had been to charge onto the battlefield, kill everyone, and then kidnap Mercy (assuming she didn’t meet the business end of his shotguns), reason prevailed and the squad managed to convince him of a more covert option. Rather than massacring everyone and potentially killing their target, they infiltrated her base of operations. Waiting for her to come back to her little medbay was a quiet affair, especially since Reaper had taken it upon himself to kill any and every person inside the medbay so that no one would be able to help her.

 

Angela was tired when she walked back to her medbay. Her work was always exhausting, but today she just felt _off_. Like there was something wrong that she didn’t know about. She marked it down to Overwatch—she knew she couldn’t delay herself any longer. She stopped walking briefly, arguing internally about whether or not it was still something she could put off, before sighing and continuing on her path back to the medbay. She resolved to respond once she got inside, and then she’d pack up her stuff and put someone else in charge. After thinking about it for this long, Mercy knew that these people would be just fine without her and that it’d be _nice_ to see everyone again. Even if it meant learning that some of her old friends had died or didn’t remember her any more.

Once she made it to the front of the medbay she stopped again. It was _quiet_ and it was _dark_. The medbay was normally full of people—both the injured and the volunteers helping them—and there was at least one light on at all times. She looked around briefly, unclipping her Caduceus pistol and readying it in front of her. She’d never been one for dealing out violence, so she’d made sure her pistol wasn’t as strong as it could’ve been back when she was part of Overwatch. A little bit of her regretted sticking to her morals so much as she carefully made her way into the medbay.

“Anyone there?” she called, and then winced because this felt like a scene straight out of a horror movie.

( _The blondes always die first_ , she thought as she tried not to panic.)

She closed her eyes with a wince when she accidentally hit something with her foot while trying to navigate the dark room. She quickly opened her eyes again because, well, it wasn’t exactly smart for her to go through this experience with her eyes closed. When she glanced down to try and see what she’d hit ( _please just be a stray pack of medical supplies_ , she chanted internally), she saw the dark pool underneath a suspiciously human-shaped form lying on the ground. Her eyes widened with shock, and it took all her past training not to gasp or scream. She swallowed, knowing it was too late for her to try and use the Caduceus staff to resurrect them, and tried to make her way to where she knew she’d left her phone this morning. With every accidental bump of other body-shaped objects on the floor, she winced and grew a little more afraid. Had someone finally tracked her down for her technology and was willing to kill for it? Or was this more personal—was this someone who held a grudge against Overwatch? Her hands trembled and the pistol shook ever so slightly as she glanced around, trying to tell herself that the occasional signs of movement she saw in the corners of her vision was just her panicked mind playing tricks on her.

It was when she stumbled into her small little ‘office’ that she finally pulled the trigger on her pistol wildly, because the lights had flickered on and revealed Reaper lounging casually against a wall, holding her phone in his clawed hands. As she tried to shoot him, the phone clattered to the floor (in the back of her mind she rather hoped the screen hadn’t shattered—she was still, for whatever reason, on the plan paid for by Overwatch) as his body turned smoky and wraithlike.

“What do you want?!” she cried out, stumbling backwards as she tried to think of a way to get to her phone to activate the recall.

He just laughed at her, the sound filling her with dread as she tried to keep out of his way. Her close quarters combat skills had left something to be desired—again she rued her past self’s choice to stay a pacifist and refuse to take the mandated combat courses back at Overwatch.

When she realised that him being in wraith form meant that if she couldn’t hit him that he couldn’t hit her, she dived for the phone. She thought that maybe she could at least activate it before she got killed so that they’d know where she’d been. The thought of her being left to rot out here with the rest of those killed just outside the room filled her with fear—she had always wanted people to remember her, one way or another. She grabbed the phone from where it slid, desperately trying to unlock it when she felt the press of a shotgun’s barrel against the back of her head. She froze up, holding her breath as she waited for Reaper to pull the trigger and splatter her brains against the floor.

“Talon could use someone like you, Dr. Ziegler,” he told her, pressing the shotgun a little harder against her skull until she dropped the phone again.

Well, it wasn’t like her options were looking up. It was better to go ahead and sacrifice herself for her morals rather than working for a terrorist organisation that stood for everything she was trying to stop. She closed her eyes and prayed that somehow, someone would save her.

“Over my dead body,” she hissed angrily, hoping that it didn’t sound as fearful as she felt.

“We thought you’d say that,” he replied with another terrifying laugh.

There was no pull of the trigger and no blast to kill her. She opened her eyes when she felt the gun lift off the back of her head, only to be knocked out as he hit her over the head with the shotgun.

Reaper tucked away his shotguns and picked up her unconscious body, taking an extra moment to crush her phone under his boot. He didn’t want anyone to track her down using it and find out what had happened to her. Better that Overwatch assume she’d washed her hands of them than for them to learn that something (which would obviously be Talon, because they’d been hunting Overwatch agents for a while) had either taken her away or killed her.

“Hurry up and take anything useful. Medical supplies, notes, whatever you can get your hands on. We’re going to need it for her to be of any use to us,” he called out to the agents that were hiding in the darkness, stepping idly over dead bodies as he made his way back to their transport. “The good doctor will need them once Talon convinces her of our cause.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so this whole setting the scene of this story may be a lil handwave-y but i hope that it makes sense. anyway. we're onto the stuff i am raring 2 write about which is the actual Plot rather than these intro chapters  
> also this is much longer than the first chapter i am surprised @ myself for this


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mercy Has A Bad Day™ and also she gets a warm welcome from the folks at Talon  
> (warnings for non-con vague body modification and surgery)

When she woke up, she felt fine for the first second. Then the pain hit and she felt dizzy, trying to reach up to put a hand to her head only to learn that her hands were tied down. She forced her eyes open to try and find out where she was and why she wasn’t dead, fighting back the dizziness. _Probably a concussion_ , she realised as she looked around. She was in what looked like a cell, tied down to a surgical table in the middle of it. Next to her was a small metal table with an array of tools (ones she was familiar with and knew meant nothing good for her) laid out neatly. The bright light above didn’t do any favours for her headache.

_Dizziness, nausea, headache. All signs of a concussion_. She could only hope that the sick feeling in her stomach didn’t end in her vomiting, because it was unlikely that anyone at Talon would be feeling sympathetic enough to clean it up. She let out a shaky breath, tugging again at the restraints on her wrists and ankles. It was unsuccessful, but it made her feel like she was at least trying when all she wanted to do was close her eyes and pretend this was all a bad dream.

The noise she caused alerted guards stationed outside the door to her cell, and (although she was unaware of them and was still trying to loosen the restraints around her wrists) in turn they alerted their superiors. Within minutes, a Talon doctor was ushered into the cell alongside Reaper and a few more agents. She looked over at them as well as she could, and then dropped her head back against the surgery table. _Not a smart move_ , she thought as she winced from the pain of hitting the bruised part where Reaper had so kindly bashed her over the head with a shotgun. Still, at least she didn’t have to keep looking at the people who would get the private show to what was becoming apparent to be her torture. She swallowed nervously, hands curling into fists as she tried to keep her breath even.

It wasn’t like Overwatch had trained her for torture situations. Her refusal to take combat courses other than the most basic ones and her role as a healer meant that everyone assumed she would never be left alone long enough for anyone to get the drop on her to kidnap her. Of course, that had been the time when they’d thought Overwatch was unstoppable, a force of good that the world needed. Angela had been ever the optimist when she was younger, before she realised that she couldn’t save everyone and that sometimes the good guys lose. Angela had just assumed no one would care to take out the medic from Overwatch—she’d thought they would go after the active threats.

The Talon doctor walked forward and stood by the table with surgical instruments, picking up a small black triangle and looking at it idly.

“Dr. Ziegler, we would appreciate your cooperation. It would make things for us and for you a lot easier if you didn’t try to resist,” he told her, flashing her a polite smile as he put down the triangular object and put on surgical gloves.

“Go to hell,” she shot back, barely resisting the urge to act like this was a movie and spit on him.

(If she was going to get tortured, she could at least put on a brave face first so it wasn’t as terrible if she gave up and told them or if she died. She wanted to tell herself she’d never give in to their torture, but it had been so long since Overwatch had helped her and the rest of the world needed her work.)

Reaper let out a dark chuckle, smoke curling around him as he took in the sight of Mercy strapped down and helpless—he’d always wanted at least some kind of revenge against her for what she’d turned him into in her attempts to keep him alive. It wouldn’t exactly be a heartbreaker to see her experience something like what he’d had to endure only to be left in this broken half-alive state.

“It’s _really_ in your best interests to listen and be a good girl, Mercy,” he drawled out, scraping the claws on one glove against each other in a menacing fashion.

Angela craned her head to look at him, and re-evaluated her approach to this situation. She didn’t want to cooperate, just to be contrary. Fuck what this asshole told her to do—she hadn’t survived this long without Overwatch just to lie down and give in. She put her head ( _gently_ this time) back against the surgery table.

“Why am I even here?” she finally asked, purposefully ignoring Reaper and looking back at the doctor.

“Talon needs someone like you. Or rather, they need your technology. Your Caduceus staff and Valkyrie suit could revolutionise what we do, after all,” he told her casually, as if she wasn’t about to be cut up and he wasn’t the one about to be doing the cutting.

She wasn’t particularly religious despite the angelic imagery she’d attained, but she thought out a prayer to whatever deity could be listening to get her out of this situation. Unfortunately, they’d clearly turned a blind eye to her on this occasion.

“I’m not going to tell you anything! Why would I _ever_ tell Talon how to use my work to destroy what I stand for?!” she cried out desperately, straining against the restraints again.

“Well, we rather _counted_ on that. You’d be a tough egg to crack—and besides, what we have planned will certainly be better for us both in the long term!” he told her conspiratorially, daring to even wink at her as though this was a joke.

It was then that he motioned forward some guards to hold her face down, and she looked around wildly as he moved closer with the scalpel raised. She tried not to scream when he began cutting into her forehead, whimpering slightly and clenching her hands tightly. _I can get through this_ , she told herself. _This is nothing compared to when an Overwatch mission went south!_

By the time he had cut her three more times along her forehead, she was white-knuckled and trembling. It was in part the rush of adrenaline from the pain and the fear of what was to come that was making everything worse, not just the pain from the cuts. Blood was sticky against her face, and the clink of the scalpel against the table of tools made her relieved and panicked all at once. She opened an eye, trying to look past the hands of the guards to see what the doctor was doing. He’d picked up one of the triangle objects, and he took it and carefully placed it against one of the cuts.

She screamed when it began to burrow into her skin, feeling it scrape against her skull and embed itself firmly into place. She burned with pain, throat sore and voice hoarse. The next cut had another triangle placed into it, and she screamed again, wailing now as the pain intensified. The pressure in her head was building, worsened by the concussion as she thrashed against the tethers holding her down. She could hear one of the guards muttering (perhaps in shock at this sudden response to an otherwise innocuous object), but the words didn’t process as the doctor put a third and fourth triangle against the other two cuts.

She almost hoped it was over, but then the lights on the end of the objects activated and glowed orange, and she let out a desperately shriek for them to stop as she felt them burn the surrounding skin of her forehead, forcing the wounds to cauterise and keep them in her head. She easily gave into the urge to pass out and get a reprieve from the pain, blind and deaf to the rest of the world.

The doctor sighed when the sounds stopped, taking off bloody gloves to rub at his temples. He was going to get a headache from her screams—he was glad she’d finally passed out. In any case, his work was done and he let himself out of the cell, ready to wash his hands metaphorically and physically of this whole procedure. Sure, the job paid well, but he wasn’t sure how much more torturing he could take. He was just meant to be a damn surgeon, not a terrorist.

Back in the cell, the guards began wheeling out the surgery table (with Mercy still on it) and carted her around to the reconditioning wing. They didn’t question anything that happened in that wing, only that you went there if you didn’t listen and most of the times you didn’t leave. After that, they resumed their regular posts and duties.

There were only a few spatters of blood against the cell’s floor to even suggest anyone had been there. Talon ran an efficient organisation—after all, they’d managed to plant the seeds to take down Overwatch in the first place. If they could train Widowmaker and keep Reaper on their side, it wasn’t going to be the most difficult task in the world to kidnap an ex-Overwatch doctor and change her to suit their needs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so. this one may be a lil darker but. i tried 2 keep things a lil vague bc i personally didn't want 2 have 2 sit down and write a gruesome torture/surgery scene  
> that is... not something i am About  
> anyway. the triangle thingies are those lil decals on the devil skin. i wanted to have a use for them and bc i didn't want to write an extended torture scene, the point of them is that they're going to be spooky mind control tech basically!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mercy vs the reconditioning wing  
> warnings for, well, torture. and non-con surgery/body modification

When she next woke up she was in a different room. She was sitting down, but there were no restraints holding her there. She felt dizzy again, and it was hard to keep her eyes open. She blinked a few times dazedly, flexing her fingers and trying to catalogue the various aches and pains she felt. Whatever they’d put in her head felt like it was drilled into her skull, and the pain from it was

“What’s your name?”

She stared at the masked individual sitting across a table from her blankly, and then the question processed. She furrowed her brows in confusion—they knew who she was. They were the ones that kidnapped her!

“I’m Dr. Angela Ziegler,” she answered with the vague hope that maybe she’d been rescued while she was out (although the mask and the industrial lighting of the room wasn’t exactly reassuring).

The pressure in her head from earlier built back up, and she groaned and threw her hands up to her temples as though clutching her head could do anything. Her forehead hurt, but this pressure felt like it was radiating all around her head, so it must’ve been from something else.

“Wrong answer, I’m afraid.”

She cried out as the skin on her forehead burned once more, clutching at her face to try and rip out the objects they’d forced into her. She tore at the skin with her nails until someone (or something, she couldn’t tell) grabbed her wrists and pulled them from her face. She sobbed as the pain grew, wailing and shaking in the chair and closing her eyes in pain. Her skin felt too small for her body; the heat and pain and buzzing forcing her to shut down and try to wait it out.

 

Hands tugging through her hair. Her own coated in black—stained to the bones in ink (if she squinted it looked like blood, like the lives she couldn’t save; was this her atonement? Were her failures catching up?); she stared blankly at them as black drops oozed and rolled to fall onto the floor. They twitched and trembled as she tilted her head back and closed her eyes.

 

“What’s your name?”

The question echoed through the incessant buzzing in her head, like someone was knocking on a metal surface in an empty room. She shook her head slowly, as though it could help clear out the thrumming pain simmering under her skin.

“My name is Dr. Angela Ziegler, and you’ll be sorry you ever tried to hurt me when Overwatch comes to save me!” she answered defiantly, tilting her head up to glare at the masked person sitting opposite her.

She was about to offer up more (likely empty) threats when the pain reared its ugly head again, as though there was someone else in her head trying to melt her out of her own skin. She screamed hoarsely, blackened fingers digging into the arms of the chair as she swayed from side to side.

“Wrong again. It looks like we’ll need to get a bit more hands on,” they said, writing something on a clipboard and then clicking their fingers.

 

Hands shoving her forward, pressing her face against the cold table. She almost wept at the contrast to the burning heat under her skin, tears streaming into a pool under her face. Yanking at her hair, grasping her by the neck, tearing at the base of her neck.

The burning started again, building now from her neck up—she could feel something being pushed into the apparent cut at the back of her neck and she went as still as she could manage. One wrong move and she’d be more than a little but fucked.

She whimpered and moaned in pain as the hands came back, tugging at the skin of the wound, pulling it closed.  White knuckled hands released their grip on the chair as she faded out from awareness.

 

_Better to forget._

How much time had passed?

_So many mistakes—happy is the person with no past._

Was anyone coming to rescue her?

_No one is coming to save you._

Was it over yet?

_Forgetting means you never have to remember the pain._

She drifted away again, letting herself ignore the burning of her own body.

 

She drifted back to the heat of her own body; her skin feeling like it could melt away to reveal ash and bone at any moment. Martyr on the pyre; she was Joan of Arc hearing the voice of God. Her body set alight and being purged—the guilt and death of so many trailing in her shadow, the good doctor being weighed down heavy with the blood of the collateral damage. Fire to cleanse her, to set her free of the whispered nightmares that kept her up at night ever since she’d donned the Valkyrie suit.

 

She let herself float back away, willing to forget for a blissful moment of relief.

 

Thoughts that weren’t hers. Were they? They slipped in and seemed so reasonable. What was the point of remembering if it only meant more pain? She blinked slowly, trying to pull herself from the haze of rapid-fire thoughts.

 _You are no one. You have no name. Talon saved you from yourself. Talon is protecting you from harm. Listen to them and survive_.

That… didn’t _seem_ like her. She tried to push through the fog and pain to understand why it wasn’t, but the angry thrumming in her brain increased and she mentally recoiled. Better not to question it.

 

“What’s your name?”

She leant back heavily in the chair, eyes unfocused and damp dark hair obscuring her vision.

(Wasn’t she blonde? The thought only brought up more pain and burning, so she shoved it away. She had dark hair. She never had any other hair colour. Don’t question it.)

She said nothing still, letting the silence drift on. Had days passed? Her head felt empty except for the humming that was ever-present. She felt like a puppet being pulled at the strings, her mouth opening to reply.

“I don’t… have a name…” she answered slowly, wary and expectant of the flame and heat to be pressed back into her brain to punish her for her mistakes.

There was only blessed silence. She swallowed, trying not to feel too eager as she forced herself to focus on the masked person in front of her. Was she good? Had she answered correctly? Was this what they wanted?

There was the scratching of pen on paper as she tried to keep herself held upright. She wasn’t sure how long passed. Time seemed to slip through her fingers like sand would.

“You’re correct,” they said, tilting their head to the side. “You are no one.”

She almost sobbed with joy, the ache in her head lessening as they spoke. She gave a weak smile, hoping they would continue being good to her. She wasn’t sure how much more pain she could take.

“You saved me,” she said unprompted, stumbling over her words as she tried to convey her thankfulness at them for stopping her pain.

“ _Talon_ saved you,” they corrected, writing something else on their clipboard. “We will give you a name, if you like.”

She nodded eagerly, pushing herself forward to ensure she couldn’t miss their next word. She wanted a name back; she needed something to call herself.

“You are Mercy—Talon’s best medical officer. You’ve revolutionised our work. We barely managed to save you when you were taken from us by Overwatch,” they told her, putting down their clipboard.

Something didn’t feel right about their explanation, but the name Mercy resonated with her. It was familiar. Besides, Talon could stop the pain and quench the burning under her skin—if they said they had rescued her from whatever Overwatch was, she trusted them.

“I’m Mercy,” she said, testing out the name with delight. “Thank you—thank you so much for rescuing me!”

The person opposite her leaned back in their chair, making a hand motion as they clicked their pen close with the other hand.

“It’s what we do, Mercy. Talon’s here to help save the world.”

Hands gripped at her swaying body, and she screamed in a now ingrained fear that more pain was to come. People were crowding around her now, clad in black and seemingly inhuman. They didn’t let go, and she tried to push back the slithers of betrayal as they dragged her from her chair and pulled her (as she shakily tried to stumble a walk and pull herself away from their hands) through their facility into what was apparently her personal quarters. They dropped her on her bed and left without ever saying a word.

The message was clear. Even if they had saved her from Overwatch, she was to jump when they asked and not ask why. Her long black hair stuck to the drying tears on her face, and the objects in her forehead pressed painfully against her arms as she curled up on the bed and willed herself asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so. this took a lil longer to churn out. hopefully it was the right blend between jumping/choppy timeskips/fade-ins and fade-outs and making a cohesive and understandable storyline  
> this was meant to be more confusing but like. not nonsensical. let me know ur thoughts, if there's a mistake in it, if there's something u are curious about or think i should change, etc.  
> pls comment ur thoughts as well i am nervous about writing this story and would rlly love feedback (it'll 100% motivate me to write more!)  
> p.s. the thing they put in the back of her neck is basically a chip to help Talon to monitor her thoughts and control her! since her outfit is high necked in the skin i thought i could get away with it bc it wouldn't be noticeable unless she was out of uniform


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mercy gets a small chance to explore the talon base and pick up her Edgy new valkyrie suit

There was no rude awakening this time—no new pain setting in to drag her away from the comforting hold of sleep. She woke up slowly, blinking hazily as she uncurled and sat up. She rubbed her eyes, taking stock of the residual aches and pains of her rescuing. Her head still hurt and felt too busy (like there was something else there—like if she pushed hard enough against it she would unravel whatever was there—but pushing through the barrier would mean more pain, and that would mean whatever they’d burned into her forehead would start up again), and the back of her neck hurt. Aside from that, she was surprisingly… okay. She pushed herself up, looking around to see what facilities Talon had provided her with.

She pursed her lips as she took in the rather Spartan furnishings. Aside from her bed, there was a bedside table, a cupboard, and a mirror. Not so much as a decorative fake plant to liven up the surroundings. _Well_ , she thought _, I can always add a personal touch later_. There was a file sitting on her bedside table that she assumed would be about her resuming her role as Talon’s medical officer, but first she was driven by the need to take stock of herself in the mirror. She walked over hesitantly, afraid to see what her reflection would show.

The person in the mirror didn’t look like her. She was confused—she stared into the reflected purple eyes and was confused by the feeling of not being in her own body. _Blue_ , she thought randomly as she lightly tugged at the bags under her eyes. _I don’t remember purple_.

A different thought occurred, more insistent and buzzing. _Probably just forgot due to the stress of being taken by Overwatch. These things happen. I’ll remember soon enough_.

Black hair and black eyebrows. Tired and bloodshot eyes. She tried to ignore the objects in her head. Thinking about it would likely just start the burning again—she shivered at the idea of the dull aching that resounded through her head turning into the jagged burning again.

Her outfit? She peered down at herself, brushing at her messy and dirty tank top. She was wearing plain loose pants as well. It looked like a regulation outfit that they probably gave newcomers. Hopefully she’d have something newer to wear soon.

Her fingers were still ink stained. She didn’t remember spilling anything on them, but the tips of her fingers were stained black. She pulled them away from herself, staring as they twitched and trembled unbidden. She fought back the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach at the sight.

_Shaky hands don’t save lives, Mercy._

(Surgeons can’t afford to fuck up. How was she supposed to help the injured if her hands wouldn’t stay still?)

She clenched her hands into fists, looking back into the mirror a final time. The past couldn’t be changed. She was just affected by the trauma. Her hands would stop soon enough. She walked away now, grabbing the file on the bedside table and began pacing her room as she read through it.

It gave her a basic rundown of important people within Talon and what they expected of her. She was supposed to report in to the medical centre when she was able to and then reacquaint herself with the base. It told her that since it was established by those in the reconditioning wing that she was apparently suffering some sort of amnesia that people had been told to act as though she didn’t know them. She appreciated that—a shaky smile graced her face as she realised the extent to which Talon had gone to save her. She owed them her life—not every organisation would have gone out of their way like this to protect and rehabilitate a mere doctor.

She snapped the file closed, walking over to the door and grasping its handle. She hesitated—fear swelled up within her that something outside of this safe space would hurt her. She swallowed nervously, but forced herself to stick her chin up and brave it. Talon would protect her. They wouldn’t let anything hurt her.

She opened the door and peered out, shrinking in on herself slightly when she saw a guard walking past. She clutched the file tighter and scurried quickly out of her room and along the corridor. She didn’t really know where she was going, but figured she’d just sort of… wander around and get used to her surroundings again while she tried to find the medical centre. Maybe she’d ask for directions if it got bad enough and she’d spent too long getting lost.

She looked around idly, pressing the file close to her chest. Mercy tried to ignore the way her heart was beating fast in fear—there was no danger here. While her gut tried to tell her otherwise, the noise in her head was reassuring her and reminding her that Talon was protecting her. Her feet kept moving underneath her steadily, betraying none of her inner battle to try and calm down.

It was only when she saw two new figures approaching her that she stopped. She could recognise them from her file (and from vague and hazy memories of danger and betrayal that slipped from her thoughts like sand through her fingers would) as Widowmaker and Reaper. She felt like a deer in the headlights as she remained stock still in the middle of the corridor as they kept walking towards her. When she made eye contact with Widowmaker ( _Amelie_ —the name rose unbidden, and she barely managed to keep herself from letting it spill from her lips—she couldn’t afford to draw more attention to herself), she suddenly darted to the side of the corridor and pressed her back up against the wall. She felt pinned in place as they both remained silent and staring as they walked by her. She sighed when they kept moving, shoulders dropping as she relaxed.

“Medical centre’s the next left.”

She looked up sharply, turning towards the voice.

 _Oh_.

Reaper had stopped and was looking at her (or at least in her direction; the mask made it difficult for her to tell). He’d obviously known who she was and where she was meant to be going. She smiled nervously, raising a hand in both a greeting and a thanks. She remained pressed against the wall, though, and waited for him to turn around and keep walking away before she began hurrying through the corridor to get to her destination.

Surprisingly enough, his directions had been true. She swallowed another sigh of relief, going inside to try and report in. The medical surroundings put her at ease. This was her element. She quickly attracted the attention of another doctor, who approached her with a smile.

“You’re Mercy, right? We’ve been expecting you!” the other doctor said warmly, pulling the file from her hands and escorting her over to where some desks were situated.

They put the file within a drawer (she reached out to ask for it back because she wanted it to try and provoke the memories of working at Talon that she’d lost, but was too afraid of negative consequences to say anything) and quickly bustled them over to a series of lockers.

“We’ve got your new outfit ready for whenever you’re next going into the field, so I’ll give it to you to hold onto. Sorry for the delay in getting it to you—apparently there were a few things that needed to be fixed up, but otherwise it should be the same as it’s always been!”

“Thank you,” she replied weakly, somewhat stunned by the niceness of the other doctor.

(For whatever reason, she’d expected them to be harsh to her. She wasn’t sure why, though, because this was meant to be a colleague of hers. They were probably friends and she couldn’t even remember it. She tried not to feel too guilty.)

They opened up one of the lockers and pulled out a rather bulky looking red outfit and handed it off to her. She tried not to fold it or crease it too much as the other doctor put additional items (shoes, a staff, and a small red pistol) on top of the outfit.

“Right, so that’s the Valkyrie suit, your shoes, your Caduceus staff, and the Caduceus pistol. You’re now ready to go on missions!” they said with a smile, putting their hands on their hips as she tried to balance everything.

She flashed them a polite smile as they then began ushering her out. She assumed she was meant to put everything away in her room, so she didn’t protest even though she hadn’t been briefed on any of the medical happenings at Talon. Maybe they were waiting for her to settle in again and calm down. That was probably it.

She walked back to her room with purpose, clutching at her pile of things tightly as she avoided looking at any of the people who stared at her as she walked by. This was enough exposure for today. She wanted to put her stuff away and hide herself away. The lingering fear of being taken again was rising up, so she hurried back and only let herself visibly fall apart once she’d closed the door to her room. It wouldn’t do for anyone else to see her like this—she didn’t want the people she’d been working with to see her in such a state because of Overwatch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok i started writing this at like 2:30am and it's like 3:30am now ok i'm Tired and this feels kinda like a filler chapter but. i just wanted mercy to get her outfit and gear back. i'll probs do more widowmaker and reaper interactions next chapter and then!!! a mission!!! and overwatch ppl!!!!! there will be more plot i Swear!  
> (also yes i imagine they forcibly changed her eye colour bc u can get it tattooed a different colour but i have a Thing abt eyes and shit being done to eyes so i felt queasy trying 2 write it sorry fam)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mercy gets her makeup done and talon recruit 2 new people!

The days passed in a blur, as there were little to no windows that really told her what the time was. She just followed the routines set by those who were higher up than she was, and assumed that it was night outside when they turned the main lights down to be dimmer. Her days mostly consisted of undergoing combat courses with her pistol and staff (as well as hand-to-hand combat) and helping out at the medical centre. She felt like she was finally reaching a steady state again—while she certainly didn’t feel anything like joy whenever she woke up, she wasn’t waking up as often in the middle of the night due to the recurring nightmare of being surrounded by faceless bodies and being taken by someone (or something).

She knew it was to be expected that there would be lingering effects of Overwatch kidnapping her. So she buried herself in her work and the combat courses, determined to be able to protect herself enough to stop anyone from trying to take her again. Her theory was that if she pushed herself to the limits and exhausted herself, she could escape the fear that would bloom while she was asleep and wake her up violently with the nightmares of being surrounded by corpses, of being buried alive under the dead and all those she couldn’t save.

(If her hand trembled when she held up her pistol and aimed at the targets, no one at the shooting ranges said anything to her.)

She would see Widowmaker around her more often than Reaper. She felt more at ease around Widowmaker though, for reasons she couldn’t substantiate. There was just something about Reaper that made her heart beat faster and made her instincts scream to run like she was prey about to be caught in the jaws of a predator. She didn’t feel that way about Widowmaker—with her she felt a slight fear that soon faded into admiration. Widowmaker was never fazed by anything—the other woman always looked exactly the same when returning from a mission as she did when Mercy had seen her leave.

When the other woman pulled Mercy aside in a corridor while she was walking to the medical centre, she instinctively flinched out of the grip. When people touched her, bad things happened. It was instinctual to shy away from others, lest the ever-present humming heat of the triangles in her forehead turn into the raging inferno she could remember purging her free of the things that Overwatch had done to her.

“Sorry,” Mercy apologised, smiling weakly as she forced herself not to hunch in on herself.

Widowmaker arched an eyebrow delicately at her (at the shivering mess that had once been the great Dr. Angela Ziegler; at the weak creature that Reaper boasted about breaking easily) and returned the smile.

“No need to apologise, Mercy. I was just coming to tell you that you’ve been called out for a mission later—it is best to be prepared now. I have come to assist you, should you need my help,” the Frenchwoman replied easily, guiding the other (without ever touching her again) back towards the room allocated to the doctor.

In truth, Widowmaker had come not only because she had been ordered to alert the doctor to her new mission, but also to try and at least help with her appearance. The bedraggled and tired look could only work for so long before it became pitiable. As Mercy allowed herself to be guided back easily, the sniper thought about what potential makeup look would look best on the newly reconditioned healer. Talon always had a darker and edgier look—bright colours were out of the question. A simple smoky eye would probably be best, as neither of them would likely have the patience for a complicated look. She had better things to do than to tend to the makeup situation of the unfortunate doctor.

“Put on your uniform and then I’ll help you with makeup and hair,” she told the other with authority, making shooing motions with her hands.

Mercy just nodded and silently went about exchanging her (rather pathetic, now that she thought about it) regulation clothes for her Valkyrie suit. Putting it on made her feel safer; the familiarity of the fabrics grounding her and making her feel at ease. The familiar weight of the wings against her back brought a smile to her face, and she felt the first fluttering feelings of joy since she’d been rescued. While the colours (red and black) felt… _off_ (wrong—something told her it should be white, like a doctor’s outfit, but that voice of dissent was quickly smothered), the comfort the suit provided improved her mood significantly.

She sat on her bed cross-legged, facing Widowmaker (who had since gingerly sat down on the bed and was setting out her makeup products) and eyeing the brushes warily. Touching would only mean bad things for her, but Widowmaker had only been nice to her. She could endure some pain for the sake of a potential friendship with the assassin. She liked the idea of having friends again.

Widowmaker, on the other hand, had gone to surprisingly great lengths to even find a suitable foundation and concealer for Mercy. It wasn’t like she could use her own products—blue skin wasn’t exactly Mercy’s colour match, unfortunately. She’d had to send some minion out to bring back something that would work. She set to work making the other woman not look like the tired mess she was. The semi-healed burned patches around the thought-controllers that Talon had burned into her were a little more delicate to cover, but she just ignored the flinching and muffled whimpers from the doctor as she covered every blemish and imperfection. One had to look flawless when going out to represent Talon—it would hardly do for Mercy to _look_ like she’d just gone through a traumatic kidnapping and brainwashing, after all.

(It didn’t help that thoughts of what the other woman had gone through pulled up dregs of sympathy from the depths of her slow heart; thinking about it pulled up other unpleasant feelings of things best left forgotten, like how she’d come to Talon in the first place.)

The room was silent barring the occasional command from Widowmaker to Mercy as she continued to do the other’s makeup. It was interesting watching someone who had once fought her on the battlefield sit docilely in front of her as the sniper blended eyeshadows. Sure, the flinching made her work a little messier than it would’ve otherwise been, but aside from that it was like she had a blank canvas in front of her to doll up.

Once Mercy’s makeup was done, Widowmaker quickly set about brushing out the other’s hair and pulling it into a tight ponytail. A few strands fell loose across Mercy’s forehead, but they must have been remnants of the fringe the doctor had once had before Talon had upgraded her look so she didn’t remember who she was.

“There you are,” she said, putting her hands on her hips as she stood in front of the bed and surveyed her work. “You look much better now, Mercy. Ready for combat.”

Mercy smiled brightly, like a sunflower seeking out precious sunlight. She stood up as well, slipping on her red gloves ( _red so the blood wouldn’t show; red so she could forget the gore and the gripping fingers of the dead as they reached judgement and proclaimed her to be Guilty_ —but she pushed back these thoughts with a shudder, trying to pull herself back to the present moment) and making her way to the door. Widowmaker followed after her, and then led her through the facility to where she knew that they were supposed to meet for the mission to begin.

 

Mercy stared wide-eyed at her surroundings as she trailed after the assassin, trying to memorise the path so she would be able to make her way here the next time they needed her. When they did reach the apparent meeting room, she saw her Caduceus staff and pistol placed next to a weird horn-shaped headpiece. She quickly ducked over to them and holstered her pistol, looking between the headpiece and the other operatives in the room. When no one moved to take it from her once she picked it up, she guessed that it was another part of her uniform. She placed it on her head gently, surprised when it clicked into place and firmly attached itself to the collar of her outfit. The back of the horns lit up, and so did the tips of the objects in her head. She grimaced in pain as the heat increased slightly, the buzzing in her head increasing alongside it as well. She tried to tug off the headpiece, but it wouldn’t budge. She clenched her teeth together as she came to the conclusion that she’d just have to grin and bear it.

She tuned into the mission briefing to hear that they were going to try and find and then hire two Australian criminals who were on the run. She frowned at that—why would an organisation like Talon need to hire criminals? She was sure there were reasons she must have missed that justified this, though. She picked up her staff and walked over to Widowmaker and Reaper. She didn’t say anything, she just smiled briefly at them and tried not to nervously sweat off the makeup that Widowmaker had been gracious enough to apply.

They were led outside the compound (and the sun blinded her briefly—she was all too used to the artificial lights now that she had to blink rapidly and try not to let her eyes water too much), and revelled in the sensation of the sun against her back. The sensation was brief, as they were then escorted onto a plane of some sort and instructed to strap in for the brief ride. She clutched tighter at her staff once she’d tied herself into the seat, closing her eyes briefly to try and adjust to the feeling of taking off.

The flight itself wasn’t long. Their destination wasn’t far out, and she could hear the sounds of explosions getting louder as the plane landed. She winced at one particularly loud explosion, glad that her role as a medic meant she wouldn’t necessarily have to be the one fighting. She’d just have to be ducking and weaving through the action to help the team. They quickly moved out from the plane, the lesser agents moving uniformly towards the sound of explosions. The wailing of police sirens was also audible, and she guessed that whatever was happening was due to the two Australians they were trying to acquire.

Widowmaker slung herself up to a vantage point, pulling out her sniper rifle and scoping out what was happening. Mercy looked around herself briefly and then pointed her staff at Reaper and activated the damage boost. Everyone else had already scattered, so she guessed she was with him. They approached the fight zone quickly, and soon enough Mercy got her first glimpse at the causes of the chaos. One was hunched, a grenade launched spewing out grenades wildly at the approaching police cars, with a tire strapped to his back—the other was a behemoth, flinging out a hook on a chain and reeling in unfortunate souls to meet the business end of his gun.

She positioned herself neatly behind Reaper as the Talon operative began firing his shotgun at any other approaching law enforcement. She wasn’t truly sure what she should be doing, but she flicked between the healing function and the weapons boosting function neatly as they cleared a path through the chaos towards their targets. Their approach didn’t go unnoticed either—their two targets had spotted them and were clearly trying to calculate whether they were friend or foe.

She gave a little wave to them with one hand, smiling brightly when the smaller one waved back. She couldn’t focus on him for too long, though, because she had to make sure Reaper could keep clearing the path towards them. Once they were able to get to the two men (and she tried to push back the sick feeling in her stomach as she stepped over countless bodies), she pointed her staff at them and began healing what she could.

“Talon has an offer for your services,” Reaper growled out at them through the chaos, making sure that Mercy was half-hidden behind him. “If you follow us, we’ll discuss the details in a quieter place.”

Their two targets looked at each other. The taller (much more intimidating, now that she could see that his face was covered in a pig-like mask) one of the pair nodded, and they then did their best to slip away from the mess they’d created while Widowmaker took care of any underpaid hero that tried to take off after them.

“Listen, mate, we’re pretty particular about the jobs we take,” said the smaller of the two, grinning wildly at Reaper once they’d managed to get back to where the plane was.

“You’ll be hired to blow things up with extreme prejudice, and both you and your bodyguard will be paid generously for it,” replied Reaper shortly, the smoke seeping out from under his coat making Mercy slightly nervous.

“Well, why didn’t you start with that!” cried the apparently now-hired mercenary, letting out a hysterical-sounding giggle. “Roadie and I are in, aren’t we?”

‘Roadie’ tilted his mask down to look at his partner, before grunting in affirmation. Mercy tried not to shiver in fear at the sound, dragging her eyes from the intimidating man to the less intimidating but more unnerving of the two. Reaper just sighed and escorted them all back onto the plane.

 

For first missions, this one had gone rather painlessly. Widowmaker had obviously left her vantage point once the negotiations started, because she was already strapped in and ready to go. The sniper was blatantly ignoring their two new companions, whereas Mercy couldn’t stop noticing them.

“Name’s Junkrat,” the smaller one told her energetically. “What’s your name, mate? You look a little out of place compared to the other two, don’tcha?”

She winced at the last comment, subtly straightening herself up to look a little more imposing. She could be tough! She could be intimidating! But she was also fairly lonely, and being tough and intimidating wasn’t going to win her any friends.

“I’m Mercy,” she replied, “and I’ve been rescued recently from… an unfortunate circumstance. So that’s why I’m out of sorts.”

Unfortunate circumstance was a fairly delicate term for being kidnapped and presumably tortured. Still, you keep your secrets like that until later on in a friendship. It wouldn’t be smart to dump it all on the next available person.

Junkrat coughed a little awkwardly at that, before regaining his seemingly endless aplomb and persevering in making a conversation. Sure, this chick was a little weird, but the weird ones were generally the most interesting. Besides, it wasn’t like ice bitch and the grim fuckin’ reaper were going to be welcome to his chatter.

“Well, y’know, you’re not there now! Me ‘n Roadie could always use someone like you, if things go to shit here. He’s always harping on about my bombs,” Junkrat continued, his tone turning conspiratorial as he offered her the chance to drop Talon and become a pseudo-Junker.

Mercy laughed nervously, eyes darting around the room to check that no one was looking at them. The buzzing in her head was suddenly vicious now, like there was something in her head screaming at her for even hearing someone propose she turn on Talon and run away. She dropped her staff, raising her hands to her head and closing her eyes in pain. Junkrat leaned a little further away from her at this, his grin dropping slightly as he took in the sudden mood change. After a few more moments of this, Mercy straightened back up and dropped her hands. She seemed a lot less lively now. Like she’d been wiped clean, or like she’d just forgotten how to show emotion. She never did say anything else to him, and he just frowned at her. She leaned back in her chair and left her Caduceus staff rolling on the floor of the plane as she stared blankly at the side of the plane opposite them.

 _Well that was weird as fuck_. Probably a sign that he and Roadie should split from this contract as soon as something better came up. He didn’t want to end up like Mercy. She looked like this place had properly fucked her up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so this is Later than i promised (lmao it's 3:30am again) but!!! ok. listen. thank u 2 cirquedubee for commenting u inspired me 2 write this huge ass behemoth of a chapter just bc u said u were excited so. congrats fam i hope u enjoy it!!  
> also. junkrat + roadhog being hired by talon and seeing mercy (and, in junkrat's case, talking 2 her and seeing her being Fucked Up) is gonna play a big role in this story!!!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mercy and junkrat have a chat and then reaper comes in to Bully

Mercy liked routines—following the set route and times that had been given to her returned to her a sense of normalcy that was robbed from her whenever someone came too close or the lights flickered in her room. Following orders robotically and without really thinking about it came easily—half the time she was trying to work in the medical centre with the barest scraps of sleep that her nightmares deigned to relinquish. It was nice. She didn’t know how many days had passed. They all seemed the same. She preferred it that way, if she was honest with herself.

It was this newfound love of order and routine that caused her to be alarmed when she saw the smaller of the two Junkers in the corridor.

She gave him a tight smile when he spotted her, because it was pretty apparent that he’d been looking for someone to get directions from (but most of the minions scurried away at the sight of him, eager to get away and afraid to get in trouble). She wasn’t thrilled at being delayed, but she knew that she should help him. She dug her nails into the palms of her hands to keep herself calm as he approached—as long as he didn’t make any weird requests or get too close, she’d be fine. If she could talk to Widowmaker, she could talk to Junkrat.

(She couldn’t talk to Reaper without feeling terrified and small, like prey staring into the eyes of the predator. It was similar with the taller Junker—the one called Roadhog. He loomed and made Mercy want to hide behind the nearest person so as to avoid being under his scrutiny, but he didn’t inspire the sweat-inducing and hand-trembling terror that came from having Reaper simply walk past her in the corridor.)

“Is there… do you need help getting around?” she trailed off at first, but cleared her throat nervously and soldiered on to ask.

“It’s like they designed this place to be as fucking confusing as possible,” he said with a grin and a laugh that sounded more like a cackle. “So, yeah, help would be great!”

She couldn’t help but smile back, daring to tuck loose strand of hair that had fallen in front of her face behind her ear. She smoothed her other hand over her lab coat (‘borrowed’ indefinitely from one of the lockers in the medical centre), keeping her breathing even and trying to seem relaxed.

“Where do you need to go?”

( _Please be close_ , she wished silently. She wanted to return to her schedule. This was a nice deviation from the norm, but any longer than strictly necessary and the burning would start up again. Just when she’d gotten her forehead to heal up—that’d be her luck.)

“I don’t know where the hell it is, mate, but I’m trying to find where they keep their weapons supplies. Gotta make more bombs and all that, y’know,” he answered, his human hand coming up to scratch the side of his head as he shrugged.

Well, that was just _great_. She pursed her lips briefly, and the background buzzing that pervaded her thoughts increased slightly with each passing moment. She winced, curling her hands up by her sides again.

“I, uh… I don’t know where they keep the weapons. I’m a doctor, not a soldier. Try asking anyone else. Sorry.”

That appeased the noise; her headache receded somewhat after she gave her reply. She smiled apologetically, wishing she could give him an answer and also wishing he’d never ask her anything again at the very same time. It was better when nobody asked her difficult questions and let her stick to her routine.

He looked visibly disappointed. She shrunk in on herself slightly, afraid that he might get violent. She’d seen his work out in the field—how much of that chaos transferred from there to here? She swallowed nervously, but fortunately nothing happened. He sighed, but gave her a wave and loped away, his metal leg thunking against the floor with each step.

She didn’t move from her spot for a few seconds. She was waiting for him to be far enough away that she could properly relax and resume her routine. She spun around to go where she needed to, only to bump into someone immediately. She stumbled back a few steps, apologies ready to spill from her mouth when she saw who it was.

_Reaper_.

She froze up, staring up at him in terror. She didn’t need to see the face behind the mask to be afraid—there were nightmares sometimes, where he’d have her at gunpoint or have her surrounded by the bodies of her colleagues. She didn’t know why he scared her so much (they were part of the same team—had she always been this afraid of him, even before her being taken by Overwatch?), but no amount of pep talks to herself could stop the slow creeping of cold fear from wrapping around her whenever he was nearby.

She opened her mouth to apologise, but he grabbed her by the jaw and she stayed silent. The tips of his claws dug into her just enough that it hurt but didn’t break skin. Her heart was beating rapidly, and her breathing came fast as she tried not to tremble. Her eyes were wide with terror and stared back into the eyes of the mask, not daring to blink even as her eyes began to water in fear that blinking would cause the other to spring into action. Distantly she could hear the sound of Junkrat’s peg leg against the floor, but it seemed miles away from her.

Smoke seeped from underneath his mask, and she kept her mouth closed to try and avoid inhaling it. He pulled her closer to him, claws digging deeper into her skin and she whimpered quietly when she felt blood begin to seep from the newly created wounds. She couldn’t move though. Like prey in the eyes of the predator. Her head felt almost fuzzy as the buzzing whirred into life, as if whatever else was in her head was also screaming at her to get away and _move_.

She stayed still. She wasn’t sure how long she’d have been there if Junkrat hadn’t interrupted. He must’ve turned around at some point to try and drag her along for more help, only to see what was happening.

“Oi, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” he yelled as he came closer, one hand reaching for one of the bombs strapped to his chest.

Her eyes darted between him and Reaper, trying to assess how this would play out. Reaper looked away from her as well, pointing his mask instead at the interfering Junker.

“Let her go, chéri,” a new voice chimed in.

Widowmaker had decided to join in as well. Mercy was almost sick with relief—Widowmaker had helped her before; she wouldn’t throw Mercy to the dogs. Reaper pushed her down to the side using his grip on her jaw, making sure that Mercy fell to the floor in a rather undignified manner.

“Watch where you’re going next time,” was all he said as he followed after Widowmaker (who looked decidedly unimpressed with this posturing).

She could almost sob with relief. Junkrat came over to where she had fallen and pulled up her upright with a surprising amount of gentleness.

“What the hell was that all about?” he asked her, sounding just as confused as she felt.

She touched one of the new cuts on her cheek gently, furrowing her brows as she tried to work out why Reaper had done that. Was it just him reinforcing that she was his lesser? He didn’t need to do anything to remind her of that—everyone at Talon knew that Reaper and Widowmaker were untouchable. Or was it personal? Had she done something in the life that she couldn’t remember? She must’ve been a different person—she doubted that she would have felt like this before. This fear of everything felt new. It was definitely a result of whatever Overwatch had done, but knowing that they were fighting to tear apart that wretched organisation gave her hope.

“I’m not sure. I just… I just bumped into him, and he did this.”

She looked past Junkrat to see Widowmaker and Reaper walking away. The sniper almost looked like she was telling Reaper off for what he’d done. It was reassuring to know that she’d have Mercy’s back in all this.

“This place is fucking weird,” Junkrat said with a laugh. “I love it!”

(And yet, in the back of his mind, he knew that this was just a sign that he and Roadie needed to leave and find a better employer ASAP. Roadie wasn’t exactly as willing to forgive as Mercy was—if someone was threatening either of them, Roadhog would show them exactly why it was that he’d been hired as a bodyguard in the first place.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so. it's been a while. i'm super sorry aaaaa i got sick and had uni assignments and it is Hard to get back on the writing wagon once you fall off oTL  
> this is such a filler chapter but i felt that writing the next plot point would be moving too fast??? i'll probs do one more chapter like this and then hop into another mission!!  
> also man the whole sombra conspiracy is popping off i'm wrapping my whole damn body in foil at this point it's so wild  
> p.s. i didn't write any roadhog because. i don't know how to write him well atm??? also straddling the line (as an aussie) between being junkrat aussie and being Fake Aussie is hard lmao


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a fight between overwatch members and talon (part 1!)

While all this was happening, Overwatch was still reforming. Slowly but surely Winston had been able to call in and convince old members to resume the fight against evil. While some of them took a lot of convincing and some flat out refused to return, there were a handful of unlikely people that didn’t need any bribery to join the now-illegal Overwatch.

The new additions were the professional gamer and former member of the Korean army, D.Va, the famous DJ and activist Lucio, the Shambali monk Zenyatta, and a rather grizzled but mysterious man who only introduced himself as Soldier: 76. They were joined by some of the original members as well—McCree, Tracer, Genji (the one who had brought along Zenyatta), Torbjorn (who wasn’t thrilled with the addition of an Omnic, and would loudly voice this whenever Zenyatta floated by), Reinhardt, Mei (who had been a part of Watchpoint: Antarctica rather than being an active field agent prior to this), and Pharah (who’d eagerly responded at the chance to fight for justice and protect those in need).

 

They were all gathered in a meeting room in Watchpoint Gibraltar—one of the few Watchpoints still functional enough to be used—and Winston surveyed the gathered group with the feeling that he’d made the right choice to go against the Petras Act and recall Overwatch. Still, it bugged him that Angela had never responded—she’d always been so adamant about helping others and doing whatever she could to save lives, but she’d seemingly chosen to ignore the opportunity to come back and do exactly that. _Perhaps her current work was more important_ , he reasoned. _She can always join later when her work is complete_. With that in mind, he shrugged it off and filed those concerns to the back of his mind.

“We’ve received intelligence that Talon is going to be striking Ilios soon as a demonstration of power—we’ll be flying in to try and intercept this attack and ensure no civilians are killed. We won’t need everyone with us; I want to make sure that we’re still able to set up communications with other Watchpoints and see if we can recruit anyone else. So the people going to Ilios for this mission will be Genji, Zenyatta, Tracer, Soldier: 76, and myself. Athena will make sure that this Watchpoint is able to function while I’m gone—if you need anything, just ask her.”

He pushed his glasses up almost nervously, looking around to gather the reactions from people. Luckily no one seemed to be angry with the choice of people he’d selected to go to Ilios—there were a few grumbles from those who’d gotten tired of being cooped up in a base in Gibraltar, but no one was openly arguing to get him to change up the team. He cleared his throat to command the attention of the room once again and waited until everyone was looking before he spoke again.

“We’ll be leaving as soon as everyone’s ready so that we can set up before Talon reaches Ilios. Gather what you need for the fight and meet in the hangar. Tracer, you’ll be flying us there,” he said confidently. “Everyone else, you can go about your daily lives. We’ll call in once we arrive and when we find Talon.”

With that, everyone was dismissed and scattered off back through the base. Soldier: 76 went to collect his pulse rifle and helix rockets, Genji and Zenyatta went together to pick up Genji’s sword, Tracer darted through and grabbed her pistols and her pulse bombs, and Winston lumbered to get his tesla cannon. Soon enough they were all gathered in the hangar, with Tracer animatedly talking to Genji while Zenyatta and Winston discussed philosophical matters like what defined humanity. Soldier: 76 wasn’t much of a conversationalist, they’d learned, and so he was silent throughout all of this. They boarded the plane and started their flight to Ilios without too much fanfare, but the mood became more serious and their conversations died down. This was the time for tactical discussions and battle plans.

 

“Overwatch is planning to attack Ilios. We’re going to fly in and root them out before they can stop our work.”

Mercy was sat at the meeting table, hands clasped nervously against the table’s surface. She had chosen to sit next to Widowmaker because of the calm and composed aura that the other woman radiated. The sniper never seemed ruffled by anything that happened, whether it be on the battlefield or in the base itself. Junkrat was on the other side of her, fidgeting constantly and alternating between tapping his metal fingers against the table or tapping his foot against the floor. He wasn’t exactly the same kind of comfort that Widowmaker was, but he made her feel safer. Like no one was going to be able to threaten her while he was there because he always had at least one explosive on him. Plus, where there was Junkrat, there was Roadhog. The larger man was next to Junkrat, and he was an intimidating presence even when he was sat quietly at a table. Reaper was next to Widowmaker—an unfortunate attachment to Widowmaker’s side, in her opinion. Just like how Roadhog radiated Junkrat like the moon orbiting the Earth (constant and close), Reaper was always by Widowmaker’s side around the base (but never on the battlefield—they were the furthest away then, with the sniper in her perch far from the front line and Reaper pushing forward into enemy territory and clearing his own path of bodies through to the thick of the fight).

“We’ll be sending most of you in to make sure you can get rid of them before they can try to strike us again. Failure to kill Overwatch agents will likely end in them killing you—so shoot first and _don’t_ ask questions.”

Those words seemed directed at her. She shrunk in on herself, fingers grasping tighter as the daggered weight of those words buried in her skin. _Don’t be a failure again_ , the told her as they coiled venomous fear through her veins. She took a shaky breath and tried to relax. She would come out of this stronger for facing her captors on the battlefield again. The constant thrum in her head seemed almost pleased at this response, and her ever-present headache eased ever so slightly.

“We’ll head out as soon as possible. Meet in hangar one and board one of the transport ships. We will not tolerate tardiness—you are to meet there immediately. Collect your weapons and head out. Understood?”

There was a hum of assent that spread throughout the meeting room, and Mercy mumbled out her confirmation. She stood up from the table when everyone else did and hurried to collect her staff and pistol from her room. She’d managed to learn how to navigate through most of the base by now, and she even knew the route to the medical office off by heart. She looked over her shoulder as she left the room and saw Junkrat and Roadhog loping off in the direction of the rooms they’d claimed as their own while Widowmaker and Reaper headed off together in the opposite direction to their quarters. She hissed an apology when someone bumped into her as they walked past, ducking her head and brushing her hair behind her ear nervously.

It wasn’t long before she was waiting in the transport ship for everyone else to arrive. Some of the nameless soldiers had already strapped themselves in, but Mercy was waiting nervously for someone she trusted to board so she could sit next to them. She gave a quick grin to the Junkers when they walked onto the ship, waiting for them to sit down so that she could casually slide into the seat next to them. What she hadn’t exactly planned for was for Reaper to choose to sit next to her (despite the empty seats that were far, _far_ away from her!), and so her grin faded as she tried to find a way to keep maximum distance between herself and him without forcing Junkrat to switch places so he could be a buffer against Reaper. She grimaced and braced herself for a very uncomfortable flight to Ilios.

 

Once they arrived, they had to set up quickly to try and prepare to strike the lighthouse to root out any Overwatch agents and take back the city. Mercy strengthened herself with the thought that this was not just a fight for her to take back her own self-confidence, but it was also to liberate the civilians in Ilios. Who knows what kind of terrible things Overwatch might have done to them—she shuddered at the thought of innocents suffering. Thank god that Talon were opposing Overwatch. The Petras Act had been put in place for good reason, she told herself firmly. No matter whether this was a bloody fight, she was helping the world by stopping Overwatch.

She basked in the quiet and the warmth of the sun, watching idly as Widowmaker surveyed the area for a good sniping position. Reaper didn’t need to scout ahead but he still trailed behind the sniper, immersed in a conversation with her that Mercy wasn’t able to hear. It was probably just battle tactics. Junkrat and Roadhog were also sat nearby, chatting and checking over their weapons before the fight. Well, it was really just Junkrat chatting and Roadhog grunting replies now and then.

It felt idyllic. The peace of the moment was something she revelled in, even if it was the calm before the storm. She leaned against her staff and checked over his pistol one last time. Once she was sure everything was ready for the fight, she rubbed her tired eyes and let out a deep breath. Hopefully this fight would prove to her subconscious that Talon was safe and that she had nothing to fear from Overwatch.

She was almost reluctant when the order came to finally move out, because the peace of the moment was shattered. The conversations around her died and people became tense as they started to make their way to the objective. Junkrat’s chatter only slowed a little bit—it became just part of the background noise in her head, and she trained her staff and linked her damage boost to one of the soldiers in the lead. Reaper was leading another squadron of soldiers to try and flank the lighthouse while they went in through the plaza.

When the bullets started flying, she tried not to shudder and collapse in a nervous wreck. She was stronger than this—she needed to be there to protect her teammates! She clenched her jaw and flew in to the front lines, aiming her staff at the injured and helping them get back up to keep fighting. She felt almost outraged when she saw that there were only a handful of Overwatch agents facing up against their squadrons of soldiers. Was this their idea of a joke? Innocent lives were at stake, and they were just treating this like some easy matter that was hardly worth their time or effort!

 

In front of her she heard a yell of Japanese and saw dozens of soldiers be cut down in front of her, their own bullets being deflected by a cyborg wielding a sword with what looked like dragon coiled around it. She almost cried out in fear, desperately trying to heal anyone left alive in the wake of this devastating attack. There was a flurry of movement and before she could even react the cyborg was running towards her with their blade held out—she didn’t even have enough time to pull out her pistol to defend herself; she froze in fear with her staff held out clenched and linked to some unfortunate soul barely left alive.

“Dr. Ziegler?!” cried the green and white cyborg, halted suddenly in their attack with their sword pressed up against her neck. “Angela, is that you?! What happened—what are you doing here?!”

She stared at their faceplate with wide and fearful eyes, mouth open in shock that she’d been left alive. They withdrew their sword slightly so that it wasn’t pressed against her, and she stumbled back a few steps and pulled out her pistol. She aimed it at the cyborg with shaky hands, hearing in her comms the angry yells from Reaper for her to just shoot already.

“I’m not-- my name is Mercy,” she forced out, training the gun at the other’s faceplate. “I’m not letting Overwatch take me again; you’ll have to kill me first!”

Her defiant cry was joined with her pulling the trigger on her pistol. The cyborg shot past her before the bullet could collide with them, burying the bullets uselessly in the wall of the lighthouse. She turned to try and attack them again, but they’d already cut through swaths of Talon soldiers and were making their way back to the rest of the group. She could see someone else darting through the squadrons and cutting them down before blinking away in a dash of blue light. The sight filled her briefly with a strange sense of relief, before the pain in her forehead started up again and the relief was replaced with fear. Whoever they were, they didn’t mean well. She shook her head and flew in towards some soldiers pushing through the main ground section of the lighthouse, trying to force herself back to the situation at hand. A wandering mind during battle was not exactly the smartest thing to happen.

Once these soldiers were fine, she (somewhat reluctantly) flew in to assist Reaper. She alternated between her healing beam and her damage boost link, meaning that Reaper was able to get in meaningful hits against the Overwatch agents that were present. Occasionally she’d pull out her pistol and take a few shots at them when she could. It was unlikely she was actually hitting them or doing any meaningful damage to them, but it made her feel more useful.

Whenever she saw the cyborg dart past her, she made sure to change her position to make sure that Reaper would be able to protect her. As callous as he was, she doubted that he’d let a teammate (especially one healing him) die right next to him when he could prevent it.

 

Further away from this were the Junkers, laying waste to the buildings around them like the Talon commander had told them to do. Chaos was their business, after all. Junkrat was the explosives expert, and Roadhog made sure that no Overwatch agent came by to bother them by keeping his hook ready and his shotgun loaded with scrap. After a while of causing some serious structural damage to the buildings, Junkrat paused and looked towards Roadhog.

“Oi, mate—next Overwatch agent that pops by and actually stays long enough to get some words in, can you tell ‘em we have a business proposition for them? Talon might pay well, but we both know they’re doing shady shit. Might be a good idea to get on the right side of the fight for once, y’know?”

Roadhog grunted an affirmative and readied his hook. Junkrat went back to blowing up the walls of buildings. When Roadhog spotted the distinctive blue trail that followed Tracer, he threw out a hook and reeled it back in just as quickly. He’d managed to hook the elusive Tracer, and he grabbed her so that she didn’t just blink out of his hook.

“Junkrat. Got you your Overwatch agent,” he rumbled out, giving the rather indignant and angry Tracer a small shake as though he was beckoning Junkrat over.

The other Junker hurried over and gave Tracer a manic grin, lowering his gun and attempting to make himself look non-threatening. A hard task to do with the tips of your hair on fire and most of your body covered in ash and soot.

“Listen, mate, we’re just trying to jump ship here. Talon’s hiring us right now, but we’re pretty motivated to leave them and join you lot after this. If you lot are willing, contact us and we’ll find a way to cut loose from Talon,” he told her, talking over her threats and ignoring her attempts to shoot him and Roadhog.

He pulled out a rather tattered business card and tucked it into the nearest pocket he could find on her jacket. He nodded to Roadhog, who dropped her and aimed his shotgun back at her in case she decided to try and fight them. There were a few moments of silence, and then she blinked away to return to the fight.

 

In the end, Talon lost enough soldiers that they were forced to withdraw. The Junkers had done a hearty amount of damage to the buildings in Ilios surrounding the lighthouse, and Mercy was left dissatisfied and ashamed at her apparent inability to keep her teammates alive. She was capable of more than this but she’d just… _forgotten_ how she was supposed to do that extra ability. She told herself it’d come back in time, but as she helped carry the wounded back to the transports she couldn’t help but be disgusted at her own uselessness. What kind of doctor was she supposed to be if she couldn’t even keep enough soldiers alive to win the fight?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok it's been like a month since i updated i'm rlly sorry but life got in the way oTL  
> have a longer chapter to make up for it-- if there's mistakes let me know bc it's like 5am and i started at like 3am lmaooooooooo  
> hopefully i'll actually update sooner bc i have Plans >B)))


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> genji tries to convince everyone that mercy's with talon while tracer + winston consider the offer from the junkers

“It was her—no one else has access to the technology that makes up the Caduceus staff!” Genji cried, hands clenched into fists as the others looked at him in thinly veiled disbelief. “She even called herself Mercy; I’m telling you that is has to be Dr. Ziegler!”

There was silence from the others. Winston sighed and picked up his glasses to clean them.

“Look, Genji, I’m not saying that there’s _no_ chance it was her, but… no one else saw Angela on the field and… what are the odds that she, of all people, would decide to up and work for Talon? You’re just seeing what you want to on the battlefield—her last marked position is in the Middle East where she’s helping out over there. We’d know if she’d moved from there and gone to Ilios,” he replied firmly, readjusting his glasses on his face and smiling apologetically at the cyborg. “Besides, she’s fairly recognisable. It’s kind of hard to miss seeing a blonde woman in a white suit flying across the battlefield. If she’d been there, everyone else would’ve seen.”

“That’s the thing—she _didn’t_ look like her! I barely recognised her, Winston! Talon’s done something to her; she wouldn’t have done this of her own free will!”

Genji was going to continue to try and prove his argument by listing all the changes he’d seen, but Zenyatta interrupted by calmly laying a robotic hand on Genji’s shoulder. Genji let out a deep breath and tried to calm down.

“If it is truly her, we will surely see her in the next fight against Talon. Once we know if it is her we can plan to remove her from Talon, but it is foolish to leap into action without knowing first whether it is truly Dr. Ziegler,” Zenyatta told him calmly, removing their hand from the other’s shoulder and placing it back in their lap.

Genji wanted to pace the floor of the jet and keep pushing his point until they recognised the urgency of the situation, but he let his shoulders sag and sunk back into the chair. He’d just have to wait until the others saw what happened to her before they believed him, clearly.

(He didn’t see the sharp and interested stare he was getting from Soldier: 76 because it was hidden by the red visor of the soldier’s mask. If he had known, perhaps he’d have guessed that the other agent either believed his story or had also seen the woman that was so similar and yet so different to Angela Ziegler.)

 

When the jet landed back at Watchpoint Gibraltar, Tracer waited until everyone had left and went their own ways back into the base before she blinked over to Winston and pulled him aside.

“Winston,” she started brightly, “we’ve got a ‘business proposition’ from two freelancers who were at Ilios.”

Winston stared at her in confusion and raised his brow as he waited for her to elaborate on what exactly this meant. She pulled out the tattered business card with a hastily scribbled phone number and a crude drawing of what the two Junkers looked like on it and handed it to him.

“They’re currently working with Talon, but they said that they want to leave them and jump ship to work with us instead. I’m not too sure if they were telling the truth, but one of them had caught me with a giant hook and had a shotgun to my face but didn’t kill me so… we could always give them a chance?” she trailed off and looked at the gorilla with a more tentative smile now.

Winston looked over the business card, sitting down in the corridor with a noticeable thump. After peering at it inquisitively for a few quiet seconds that had Tracer tapping her feet while she waited for him to continue, he tucked the card into a pocket on his own suit.

“We’ll call them and find a safe meeting place. This could be part of a scheme from Talon, Lena. If we do let them join us temporarily, we’ve got to make sure they don’t learn any sensitive information that could help Talon. Meet me again later and we can finish sorting this out, okay?”

Lena gave him a bright smile and a joking salute before she blinked down the corridor to find something else to occupy her time. Winston just stood back up and picked up his tesla cannon and went off to go and put it back in his room.

 

Back at the Talon base, Junkrat was lying down on Roadhog’s bed and idly tossed a dud grenade up and down while the other Junker sorted through the scrap he’d picked up from the battle to try and find what could be used in his shotgun as ammo.

“Do you think giving her our card was the right choice?” Junkrat asked, staring up at the ceiling while thinking about what the odds were that Overwatch would even want them to help. “I don’t think we really gave a good first impression, what with the hook and the bombs—not saying I didn’t appreciate your hooking her in!” he added hastily when the other looked over at him and made an annoyed wheeze through the mask.

“I’d feel kinda bad leaving Mercy behind, though. She looks like she’s about two seconds from a breakdown, y’know. Maybe she can come with us. What do you think, Roadie?” he asked, looking over at the other man and pausing in his tossing of the grenade.

Roadhog was silent for a few moments and paused in his scrap collecting, as though weighing up the pros and cons of taking the (rather nervous and panicky) doctor with them.

“If she wants in, she can come. No use forcing her. Talon’s gonna be pissed if she leaves, though,” he replied, shrugging and returning to his rummaging through the scrap. “She’s important to them. They don’t want her getting too close to anyone who’s not committed to Talon.”

Junkrat continued tossing up the dud grenade as he thought through those points.

“Yeah. You’re right, Roadie. It’s probably best for us to leave her. We can ask her once, but if she says no we go regardless of whether or not she’s coming.”

And with that in mind, their conversation shifted to more idle matters like what they thought Talon would do next and the potential viability of going to the beach for a holiday while they were still world-renowned criminals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so. this chapter is shorter bc i wrote it in like an hour and a half bc i'm feeling the writing vibes but i gotta work today ;A; i just wanted to set up more stuff for plot so there's no actual mercy scenes in this one but rather focusing on overwatch crew and the junkers!! hopefully u understand and Hopefully i'll get to more action stuff soon!!!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> when u update after like a month and a half with another mission chapter

There are days where she can’t remember anything before she is led away from a locked door in an otherwise empty wing of the compound. The Talon agent that leads her away is always different and they never say anything to her—she feels like a scolded child being dragged away by a tired parent as she walks nervously back into familiar territory.

(It doesn’t ease her state of mind that half the time she is holding her pistol in a white-knuckled grip with hands trembling. She doesn’t question it after the first time it happened and they never tell her why she keeps being found there.)

On those days she catches a glimpse of herself in the reflection of a glass pane and doesn’t recognise herself. Like the dark hair and vivid eyes were never hers; that the reflection was someone else who was crawling into her body and taking her over slowly. Like her skin isn’t hers; like she should dig her nails in and start tearing to rip out whatever else is inside her until she is bloody and raw but her body is _hers_. Those are typically the bad days. It feels like the world is moving around her too fast; that she needs everything to stop so she can just _breathe_.

Being around the higher up field agents like Widowmaker helps somewhat. The sniper feels very grounding—she doesn’t feel the need to fill the silence between them with frantic chatter like Junkrat does, but she’s not as overtly menacing as Reaper or Roadhog. Mercy will happily take the semi-friendly silence over having to try and drag herself into a conversation when her thoughts feel like tar dripping through her brain.

It is on one of these days where they have to go out on a mission to Dorado to meet with another group to organise plans for another mission further down the line. If she didn’t feel so committed to the cause that Talon was actively pursuing, she would have begged to be allowed to stay at base—instead, she just drags herself from the meeting room and forces herself to get into her uniform. The familiar weight of her staff feels like a stabilising rock in the middle of the stormy river that was the outside world, and she lets out a shuddering breath and tries to force herself into the mission mindset.

“Are you ready to go?” Widowmaker called out, leaning against the doorframe idly.

Mercy looked over at her and nodded, patting the pistol strapped against her hip reassuringly. She follows the other agent out to the ship, choosing to sit with her rather than with the Junkers. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to sit with them, it was just that she didn’t think she could talk more than a handful of sentences before she just shut down mentally.

It was a bad day, after all. They’d understand if she could convey to them why she’d been so unresponsive.

 

The flight was nothing special. She didn’t talk to anyone, and nobody talked to her. The Junkers were too engrossed in their own conversations to say anything to her, and Widowmaker and Reaper were busy talking to themselves about things that obviously didn’t concern her. She just wanted this mission to go smoothly so that she could just get back to base and go to her room.

 

So _naturally_ everything went to shit about 10 minutes into the meeting. They had just gotten started talking about their plans when suddenly a giant gorilla holding a gigantic gun burst into the room, followed by a myriad of other Overwatch agents. Everyone instinctively ran for it while Reaper ordered some of the cannon fodder level agents to stay behind and try to hold the Overwatch agents back while everyone else got back to the ship.

 

She rounded a corner and ran into one of the nearby buildings, trying to find out where her teammates were after they’d scattered so she could fly to them and do her duty. She leaned against the wall heavily, panting from exertion and holding an ear to her comm so she could hear any updates on locations or enemy count.

“What the _fuck_ is happening?!”

She jumped up from the wall and pulled out her pistol, staring at the civilian in front of her almost dumbly. Talon had told her that they’d made sure their business partners would ensure no one would interrupt the meeting. She’d trusted that and assumed that this meant the current battle would mean that no bystanders would get hurt.

She lowered her pistol once the apparent civilian raised her hands, darting her eyes around. She should’ve secured the building and paid more attention instead of just running in and hoping for the best.

“Look, I can’t explain what’s happening but you need to hide and wait this out. Trust me, it’ll be safer that way!”

“I’m not going anywhere alone with this happening—if you want me to do something, you’re coming with me!” the civilian retorted, crossing her arms angrily.

The not-so-distant sounds of gunfire made Mercy flinch, and she grabbed her staff. She felt resentful that this woman didn’t just listen to her and hide so that she could help Talon fight off Overwatch, but she knew she had an obligation to help. That was why she’d joined Talon in the first place.

“Fine. I’ll escort you to where you think a safe place would be, and then you have to promise that you’re going to stay hidden until it’s all clear. Okay?”

The other woman nodded and grabbed Mercy by the arm, practically dragging her out the back of the building like a human shield as they started to try and find a quieter place to go.

 

They didn’t get far through the back alleys and otherwise empty buildings before they were met with resistance. The cyborg from the last mission dropped from above, with a pattern lighting up green across its body as it landed neatly in a crouch on the floor. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped in fear, and she raised her pistol and instinctively shot at it as soon as it started to approach her.

She had, however, forgotten something rather crucial. Between her and the approaching cyborg (who had _shuriken_ coming from its hands) was the civilian she’d just been trying to escort to safety. She called out to tell the other woman to duck, but it was too late. Instead, both her and the cyborg watched the civilian get hit with the bullets all because Mercy had been too panicked to push her aside before firing. She dropped to the ground with a heavy thump and a loud scream of pain, and the cyborg seemed too stunned by this series of events to actually finish the job and kill them both.

She dropped her pistol, letting it clatter to the ground as she instead aimed her Caduceus staff at the woman now to try and repair the damage she’d just done.

The entry wounds weren’t closing up like they should have; the staff wasn’t doing anything to help. She tried to force herself into action to use her skills as a doctor to physically heal the other, but it was like there was a force holding her body still. She couldn’t turn away either; she was stuck watching an innocent bleed out in front of her.

And yet, somehow, things still managed to worsen. If it wasn’t enough to be unable to push herself past this burning, itching, pulsating force pressing heavy on her body to actually help in any way, the entry wounds started to peel. Where the bullets had slowed to a stop in the poor woman’s body suddenly started to sizzle as the flesh began to disintegrate; as if there was something in her bullets that made the flesh eat away at itself.

Mercy started to panic as the woman screamed louder and she tried to reach out to do anything, but she was helpless. The cyborg suddenly took action and clambered up the side of a nearby building (hopefully, she dimly thought through the horror and guilt that was tearing her up inside, to get the help that she couldn’t provide) and disappeared.

She could barely hear the gunfire in the background, but she felt like she could hear the sound of the civilian woman’s skin burning and melting as more and more of her began to be eaten away by whatever had been in the bullets. The woman was screaming in pain; begging for her to do something, _just fucking do something, help me, God, please, I’m gonna fucking die, please just help me!_

But she couldn’t. She was frozen to the spot by something that curled around her thoughts and dug barbed hooks into the parts of her brain that would have sent the messages to tell her muscles to _move_ already so that she could _help_ this woman.

 

Eventually the cyborg returned with company—a young man with a frog emblazoned on his shirt who skated in holding what looked like a weaponised speaker. She still hadn’t moved, with her hands white-knuckled on her staff and her pistol lying on the ground at her feet. If not for the battle raging outside, you could’ve heard a pin drop from the silence of the alleyway. There weren’t any more screams, because all that was left of the civilian that Mercy had tried to escort to safety was an unrecognisable bloody lump of vaguely human-shaped flesh that oozed and sizzled every so often. Mercy dragged her eyes off the corpse of the bystander she’d killed and stared at the Overwatch agents with wide and horrified eyes. She’d done this. The cyborg had watched her do it and now the two of them were witnesses to her failure.

She wanted them to kill her, in that moment. She wanted them to let her bleed out in this alleyway as well so that she wouldn’t have to bear the weight of this death on her shoulders. The force that had held her in place so that she would have to watch the consequences of her action suddenly disappeared, and she stumbled back. She kept her eyes on the two of them, but only the young man raised what she assumed to be his weapon at her. The cyborg didn’t move to attack her.

She took advantage of their hesitation and grabbed her pistol off the ground, running out from the corridor and linking her staff to a nearby Talon agent so that she could escape the alleyway and get back into the midst of the fight. They didn’t strike her down as she was running, for some reason.

Maybe they knew the sinking feeling of guilt that bloomed within her after the recognition that she had killed an innocent and wanted her to suffer more than simply killing her would hurt. There was no real reason that they should have allowed her to leave that alleyway alive after seeing what she’d done and what her weapon was capable of.

 

It was only after she’d confessed to Widowmaker in a quiet moment alone on the flight back about what had happened in that alleyway that she’d found herself in that empty wing again. She stared at her shaking hands, wondering why it was that she had felt so viscerally upset after that mission.

It was an unfortunate fact of their life that civilians would eventually get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. She shouldn’t have felt so horrifically guilty that someone had died and she’d been unable to help.

It wasn’t like it was her fault, really. The cyborg had been the one to deflect her bullets into the civilian’s body as it was trying to attack her, after all. She just needed to use this moment to keep fighting against Overwatch so that she could stop more innocents from being killed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok listen. life got SEVERELY in the way of writing this fic. my computer ate shit and had to get repaired, i've been super busy with uni, i got a job, etc. i'm really sorry about making you guys wait so long for this but!!! i hope it was worth it!!!
> 
> anyway. if u want u can come talk 2 me abt this fic at my tumblr which is @ littlemisszuipperpips  
> edit: some minor grammar mistakes were fixed hmu if u spot any more lmao


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> post-dorado observations and plans

Widowmaker has been observing Mercy since her arrival at Talon headquarters. It is in her nature as a sniper to observe everyone and everything—even if Talon wished her to remain silent about her knowledge, no one could hide from her sight.

Reaper had told her in the night how he’d brought her in, how he’d trailed after the doctors as a plume of smoke just out of sight, how he’d known that he should’ve killed her rather than let her become like them but that the vindictive part of him had wanted to see her suffer the way that he had. He told her that they’d opened her up on a slab and that for all his hatred of Overwatch it still turned what was left of his stomach to see a former teammate be treated like a science experiment.

(She knew, though, that whatever twinge of a conscience had shown up would be crushed immediately. She had no desire to waste her time with meaningless platitudes for the man who was her partner. It didn’t stop her from curling against him more and allowing him to hold her closer, silently offering support.)

Widowmaker watched with her own eyes as Mercy stumbled through Talon after the dissection and the subsequent retraining. She wondered if they had known the weight of what they’d done; the price of taking someone apart and putting them back together wrong.

She knew, in the end, that Talon didn’t care. They would dig around Angela Ziegler’s brain to spit out a chained-up dog that would blindly follow them without ever realising the collar around its neck was cutting it open. Mercy had been lucky to come out the other end able to even form coherent sentences. The loud screams from an otherwise silent wing of the facility, constantly twitching hands, and a nervous disposition were unfortunate but certainly small side effects for Talon to have to deal with to have her skills on their side.

(Reaper, silently and without ever saying any of this aloud, compared what had happened to Widowmaker and what had happened to Mercy. Widowmaker had been left a clean slate, with skills she’d never had shoved into her empty brain and the half-memories of a life before Talon hastily pushed back with the cover of her being a sniper; Mercy had been dealt with carefully—they needed her prior skills and her medical knowledge; they just had to try and alter her memories to suit their needs. This was why she needed maintenance so often and at least one individual monitoring her reactions to situations while Widowmaker could roam free throughout the compound.)

Around the two Junkers and the outside perspective they provided, Mercy had tentatively bloomed like a soft flower that had been damaged by a storm in Spring. After the mission in Dorado (where the sniper had taken Mercy’s rushed and terrified whispers of what had happened, and had looked in her bloodshot and terrified eyes and noticed the violent shake of her hands, and had decided to tell Talon to fix her) it was like the storm that had first only bruised the petals had come back and ripped the flower to shreds.

Mercy was left an almost blank slate. There was a terrible empty look in her eyes when she had no one around to provide a stimulus, and she would often sit and stare at nothing for hours on end. Talon had taken her memories once again and twisted them to try and take away the human emotion that had caused her to panic, but now she was left dead-eyed and silent.

The doctor was like a ghost through the halls of the compound; silent and pale with eyes that no longer scanned nervously at anyone passing by. Reaper had told her on another occasion after Dorado that Talon hadn’t told Mercy about the new upgrades to her bullets and that she hadn’t been prepared for her normally weak bullets to suddenly unleash flesh-eating bacteria upon her victims. She had laughed and asked him how on Earth Mercy could stomach watching patients die and see her teammates be injured oh so terribly during the Overwatch days if she couldn’t watch some foolish civilian die. Reaper hadn’t replied. Her laughter had died off and she’d moved the conversation towards lighter topics to try and draw him back to the present moment.

One day the Junkers had left for a supply run and hadn’t come back. It surprised her that they hadn’t tried to steal Mercy away with them, but she supposed that the lack of response from the Swiss woman had been an indicator that she’d only be dead weight. Talon had sent out a search party but eventually gave up—they could find more hired guns easily nowadays. It just left Mercy without some form of tether; she spent more time than ever before wandering the halls as though waiting for one of them to show up and drag her into the present moment.

The only time that Mercy seemed to come alive was on the battlefield. It was there that the fire in her eyes came back and she could sprint around to heal and assist her teammates; as soon as training or a mission ended she returned to her hollow self, her grip loosened on her staff and her body sagging slightly as if it were struggling to find the effort to keep upright.

While Talon attempted to find a way to correct her behaviour and force some semblance of personality and will to live into Mercy’s mangled brain, Sombra made herself present at headquarters once again. The hacker had sidled up to the table that Widowmaker and Reaper were sitting at in the canteen after staring at their newest recruit and raised a quizzical eyebrow at them.

“What’s with tall, dark, and emotionally unstable over there?” she’d asked, crossing her arms and cocking her hip as they all watched Mercy slowly gathering food. “She looks moodier than you two combined!”

“Stay away from her,” Reaper had growled. “We don’t need you showing off and telling her something she’s not meant to know.”

Sombra had rolled her eyes at him, but Widowmaker had glanced at her with a look that was meant to convey that she was willing to spill Sombra’s secret in Russia to ensure that she listened to Reaper. Nothing could be hidden from her eyes or her visor—she’d just elected to pretend she hadn’t noticed what the other woman had done. It shut the other woman up quickly, just in time for Mercy to slide down her tray on their table next to Widowmaker silently.

Sombra opened her mouth to say something—probably a greeting, maybe a blurting of information from her constant incoming stream of data and knowledge once it registered to her that this newcomer was a reprogrammed Angela Ziegler—but closed it with an audible click when Reaper let out a very ominous plume of smoke from underneath his mask.

Widowmaker had laughed at that and at Sombra’s subsequent offended look, and even Mercy could pull herself together enough for a weak smile.

 

On the other side of the globe, Soldier: 76 had approached Genji about what had happened in the alleyway. It had been talked about in the debriefing when they had originally returned, but 76 sought the other out later for more information. Genji told him about what had happened to the civilian from what he’d seen before he ran to get Lúcio and about the bullets in her weapon. Soldier: 76 had seemed perturbed by hearing about the effect of the Caduceus pistol, but he’d still pushed for details on how effective it had been.

Genji had still insisted throughout that debriefing on their return from Dorado that it was _their_ Mercy who was now working for Talon, but it was hard for anyone to understand how she could justify working for a terrorist organisation dedicated to everything that Overwatch had opposed. He’d argued that the way she’d reacted had meant that she wasn’t expecting the death of the civilian; that she must be kept by Talon against her will. They all remembered what had happened to Amélie, didn’t they?

Everyone had gone quiet at that. Even years later, it was still a raw wound not properly healed by the years passed. He’d almost apologised for his outburst, but it had clearly brought some of them around.

“She never did respond to the Recall—she would’ve given me an answer rather than leaving me without any response. I suppose it is possible to think that something bad has happened to her, especially considering Talon’s suspiciously convenient new medic,” Winston had said, pushing his glasses up as he thought aloud.

As well as this, the two Junkers had shown up on their doorstep one day and had firmly rooted themselves into the base after joining the cause. They could back up what Genji was saying by telling them that she was called Mercy at Talon as well, but they hadn’t been able to provide much other information because Talon hadn’t let them get too friendly with anyone outside of their missions. They’d been able to convey that she seemed somewhat off and that she was very twitchy (which had caused D.Va to scoff because of Junkrat’s seemingly endless fidgeting, but she quieted down when Lúcio elbowed her in the side because _this was supposed to be serious, Hana_ ), as well as how Talon had been very protective of her and where she went in the compound.

It didn’t exactly bode well for them, but they were all slowly becoming more and more determined to try and rescue her.

“What if it’s not her?” Zarya had asked. “It could be just a Talon agent who looks like the doctor.”

“If it isn’t, we’ll have a bargaining chip against Talon and the knowledge that Mercy doesn’t want to associate with us,” Soldier: 76 had swiftly replied, shrugging. “So now that’s settled, I’ll start planning what we’re going to do.”

There was silence for a few beats before Winston cleared his throat awkwardly and recaptured everyone’s attention.

“Well then, everyone can head off for now. When Soldier’s ready we’ll meet up again and discuss the plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted a different perspective to sort of elaborate on stuff i've mentioned in the notes of this story but not in the actual fic itself, so i thought it'd be good to have widowmaker's pov for most of this one!!! hopefully it is still all g  
> let me know if there are mistakes lmao i am Bad  
> hmu @ my tumblr if u wanna talk about this fic!! i'm @ littlemisszuipperpips over there >B)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the 'rescue'

Time passed weirdly for Mercy. She has sat in her room and watched the lights flicker and she has wondered, briefly, how long it has been since she came back from Overwatch. Days have passed where no one talked to her; where there were no markers to break up the hours. Other days she felt _alive_ in the training room, with the steady weight of her staff in her hands and the wings on her back flying her to protect everyone around her like she was a heaven-sent angel.

(The rest of the day feels shockingly bland and she sometimes cries because they only let her train so much. Sometimes they will drag her from the training room after her knuckles are bruised and bloody from pushing herself to _fight_ and _win_ against the simulations; when her knees give out under her from running so much to be _faster_ and _better_ so that she can protect those she couldn’t before. If she is an angel sent from above on the field, she is a fallen one chained up and left to rot in her room when she is sent away.)

Her thoughts feel like oil nowadays; they slip through her fingers and ooze from her ears and she can’t help but feel hollow and terribly empty. She cannot sleep for the emptiness and the dull sound of her heart beating louder and louder when the compound is quiet.

Sometimes the others will come and force her to interact. Talking to them feels harder now; it feels like she must wade through the ruinous maelstrom to spit out even basic platitudes and greetings. The others noticed. She didn’t speak as much anymore. She was content to simply exist alongside them and be weighed to the current moment by their presence.

They still escort her to and from the dusty wing of the compound where no one else goes. She has heard other agents whisper amongst each other about the terrible wailing and the howls of pain that emanate from there that they cannot escape. She has never heard them despite all her trips to and from it.

The medical centre inside of the compound does not give her access anymore. She has long since given up on trying to get in after security was called on her when she had forced her way inside to get at her files.

She shot someone. She cannot remember who or why, but she is haunted in her few hours of sleep by the feeling of pulling the trigger on her pistol and feeling the recoil as the bullet fired. When she talked to Widowmaker about it, she received no answers. The other woman merely encouraged her to take to the shooting range to get used to firing her gun. The sniper had smiled at her (slowly, like a predator might smile at its prey while luring it into a trap) and told her that she would surely remember more about it had she shot someone.

Her head hurts and her nose bleeds sometimes. She can stare at herself in a mirror and it will take her minutes to register that it is her reflected back at herself. It is good that her head feels so empty so that there is room for the weight of the buzzing in her head to settle down in; she no longer feels like her head will crumble under the pressure of her own racing thoughts and the ever-present thrumming of _something else_ that numbs and blurs her daily experiences.

 

Still, the world keeps turning. Life moves on and Mercy must go on with it.  They are sent to Volskaya (much to the dismay of Sombra, for unexplained reasons that she was not allowed to know about) to try and retrieve more information regarding the mechs Russia has built. The cold is biting and the snow makes it harder for her to move freely amongst her team, but leaving the carrier and stepping onto the battlefield has never felt so good.

She is a flower, regrowing tougher than before; a flower that blooms only to reveal more thorns than ever.

She laughs and smiles and greets her team with the wind stealing the breath from her lungs as she flies through the crowd of soldiers. There is no remorse in her glittering eyes when she sees the Russians fall dead to the ground with bullet-ridden corpses; she sees only the heartbeats and the wounds of those under her protection.

She is the storm that cuts down the field; she is the savage wind that rips nature from the roots upwards.

 

And yet, even this bravado must come crashing down. Overwatch arrives to the scene, and they pour out from their ship and sprint towards the fight. Mercy hears it over the comms that Sombra has retrieved the information that they need and that they should retreat, but she feels glued to the floor as the enemy approaches.

She runs. Not towards them, like the storm should. She runs away, afraid and with her heart in her mouth because they were coming for _her_ and she _knew_ it. Her teammates cry out in her ear as they are cut down like the Russians, but she does not turn back.

She hides. She finds the first place possible and she presses herself up against the wall by the doorway so that she’s prepared for a fight. Her plan is to wait this out and then find a safe way back to the ship.

She is found. A blur of blue light coalesces into the form of Tracer, who staggers to a stop once she notices Mercy’s presence. Mercy hesitates to fire at her, the gun trembling in her unsure hands. Tracer lowers her weapons as well, her mouth falling open in shock.

“Angela?” Tracer asks, as if disbelieving and surprised that they were right, that this had to be their friend working for Talon.

She retrains her gun on the other, her expression firming as she braces herself. There is no trust in Overwatch. They had taken her once; they would keep her captive and keep her chained up like a rabid animal should they take her again.

“I’m not your Angela,” she spat out, pulling the trigger.

Tracer recalled to avoid the bullet, before reappearing in front Mercy with another blink once the bullet was buried in the wall behind where she’d been standing.

“Angela, don’t you recognise me? C’mon, luv, we’ve been friends for _years_!”

Tracer sounded desperate now, her expression devastated. Mercy didn’t know her; she couldn’t try to dredge up memories she didn’t have because the pressure in her head was screaming at her to _shoot just pull the trigger you coward just kill her already_ —

                    —and she collapsed. Her gun clattered to the floor, her hands raised to clutch at her temples to try and abate the intense burning that made her cry out in pain.

Her nose started bleeding and her eyes rolled back, but her body moved as if controlled by something else. Tears began to stream from her eyes as the pain in her head only increased, but she reached for the gun again and began firing at Tracer once again. The Brit had been staring at her in shock but blurred into action once the bullets started flying, blinking out of the room towards the rest of Overwatch.

Mercy was forced to stand, walking while swaying ever so slightly with her gun outstretched. She could taste the coppery taste of her own blood in her mouth, and could do nothing to spit it out while she walked slowly towards the enemy.

She began firing at them as she walked, her body trying to hit at least one of them so the bullets could take affect and begin eating away at their bodies. Unfortunately for her (and luckily for them) her aim wasn’t exactly helped by the fact that her body was being operated by someone else. They either dodged or deflected her shots, and she was hit in the shoulder by a bullet from McCree in attempts to slow her down. It worked, because she stumbled back a few steps as the pain registered. She thought she heard someone else cry out her name (but why would they cry for her? Overwatch had no love for her, despite their confusing treatment of her on the battlefield), but she wasn’t sure of anything outside of the knowledge that felt like it was gripping her skull with crushing hands that they would kill her if she didn’t kill them first.

 

The distraction from Tracer had worked, though. She’d been isolated from her team for long enough that the carrier had left without her on it. She couldn’t hear anything from her comm about it; but she felt the weight in her head intensify. It made her want to pass out; to give up and let herself fall apart once more. Whatever had been controlling her and forcing her to fight when she wanted nothing else but to run had abandoned her and left her stranded with Overwatch once more. Her shoulder hurt brutally, but even that radiating pain wasn’t enough to force her awake.

She passed out finally, with dried blood flaking off her face and fingers aching from the cold, her last sight being the members of Overwatch surrounding her with a myriad of worried expressions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> L M A O i finally got mercy back w/ overwatch!!! i wanted to lengthen it out so it didn't feel Too rushed but i felt like writing another straight chapter of mercy in the talon compound would've been boring so???????? she's back, baby  
> we still have a while to go plot-wise!!
> 
> as always u can hmu at littlemisszuipperpips on tumblr if u wanna chat!!! i'd Love to hear ur thoughts on this fic!!!!
> 
> also thank you so so SO much for liking this fic and getting it past 1k hits and 50+ kudos!!!! ilysm it means the World to me AAAAA :O  
> p.s. ty for sticking w/ this fic despite my dodgy update schedule


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mercy is back w/ overwatch and trying to [hsm voice] work work work it out

When she woke up she was in what she recognised to be a medical room and she was strapped to the bed. _Not a great start to the day_ , she thought wryly, as the memories of how she got here began to flood in. Any sense of humour she felt about this situation drained like the blood from her face, and she began to try and pull at the restraints to loosen them.

She was with Overwatch. The ones who’d taken her _before_ ; who had pulled her apart and then put her back together wrong.

If this was the second time this had happened, she had likely lost her importance to Talon. Would they bother wasting their resources on her? It seemed unlikely.  
(Perhaps it would have done better for her to have at least tried to properly befriend Widowmaker or even the Sombra character she’d barely met before the mission so that they’d have personal reasons to try and rescue her.)

Her struggling didn’t help her at all, unfortunately. She knew it was futile to keep pulling and tugging at the restraints, but the panic flooding her was telling her that she needed to get out _now_ —not even the pain that blossomed from her pulling at the cuffs around her wrists and ankles could deter her from thrashing about in a wild attempt to get free.

 

Her thrashing and panicked noises brought attention to her being awake, and soon enough someone ran into her room to see what was happening. She looked at them with wild eyes and didn’t recognise the figure in front of her—they looked like an old lady, with white hair in a side braid and an eyepatch and a tattoo under the other eye. Something seemed almost familiar about them, so she froze as they both stared at each other, but as soon as the other began to open their mouth she began thrashing and struggling once more.

The older woman pulled out some kind of gun and pulled the trigger, and Mercy barely registered that there was now a dart sticking out of her neck before she was gone from the world once more.

 

When she next woke up, everything was the same except that her wrists and ankles hurt more. She twisted her head to look around, startling when she saw that the other woman was still in the room, albeit sitting in one of the chairs that had been empty beforehand.

She didn’t bother trying to get free this time. It’d end the exact same way as it did before, and she didn’t want to find out how many sleep darts it took until her body just gave out on her.

“Who are you?” she asked instead, curling her fingers into fists nervously.

The other woman seemed almost disappointed. Was she supposed to know her? It was getting hard to think around the headache that was pressing down on her.

“My name is Ana. Do you know where you are?”

“I’m with Overwatch, aren’t I? What are you going to do? You’ve already done this once—why choose me again?! Didn’t want to bother torturing someone else?!” she answered, getting increasingly hysterical once it began to sunk in once more that she was trapped here with a very low chance of rescue.

Again, Ana didn’t react like she’d expected. She’d been expecting a sinister laugh or even for the torture to start, but instead she seemed… confused or even _shocked_ that Mercy would suggest they intended to hurt her.

(Mercy was also thrown off. What little memories she seemed to have of her time in Overwatch’s clutches had been full of pain, screaming, and little to no hospital room chats.)

“Why would anyone be torturing you? Angela… why do you think you’re here?”

 

Her response (which she would like to think was appropriately snarky considering that she felt like she was going to pass out from fear alone) only prompted Ana to get up and step outside to mutter something over what Mercy assumed was a comms system.

Were they not going to hurt her? She wasn’t going to complain, but she was confused.

 

A minute passed, and Ana stepped back inside alongside a giant gorilla and an old man with a mask on. She wondered if she’d been given hallucinogens or if this was actually _really_ happening.

“You’re not… Angela, you were never a Talon operative before what’s happened. You were with Overwatch—you were our head medical officer and a field operative who went by the codename of Mercy. I know this must be terribly confusing, but when you were unconscious we found some… things on you that probably explain why Talon could convince you so easily that you’d been with them instead of us. It looks like they’ve probably put something in the base of your neck and, obviously, whatever it is they’ve put on your forehead. We don’t have the medical abilities to perform the surgery to get them out of you now, but if you want we can find someone to do that as soon as possible.”

It was said with such confidence (from the gorilla, who she’d learned was apparently called Winston) that she could almost believe that it was true, and part of her wanted to, but she knew that this was most likely a ploy to get her to defect before they began to hurt her.

“Yeah, right,” she said dismissively, trying to ignore the creeping feeling that was telling her that they were right and that these facts resonated with her strongly. “Why would Talon bother to take me of all the operatives? Why wouldn’t they go for someone who can actually do damage on the battlefield?”

The Overwatch agents looked at each other in thought at that, as if they hadn’t really thought about why Talon would choose a medical officer instead of a front-line soldier.

“Well, they probably wanted your medical tech, Doctor Ziegler,” the masked man answered. “You learned how to resurrect people. Talon would want that kinda technology working for their team rather than ours.”

While this was happening, Ana undid her restraints. Mercy sat up, rubbing her wrists, hissing in pain as she did so.  She could see her reflection in the mirror on the other side of the room, and it took her far too long to realise that it was her that had the terrifying purple eyes and black hair. She looked… terrible. Visibly exhausted and obviously unwell.

“We think that they did something like what they did to Amelie—Widowmaker, I mean. We believe they used mind control of some sort to convince you to work for them. This would have likely been aided by torture of various kinds until your mind gave in and they did whatever they wanted,” the masked man continued, seemingly unaware of the fact that maybe potential torture victims would likely _not_ want to hear what happened to them again in detail. “Like Winston said, we can probably find a surgeon to remove anything they’ve added to you, but we need your permission first.”

“I just… need some time to process what’s happening,” she said, trying to find an excuse to get them to leave her be so she could try to understand what was even happening.

Ana looked at her shrewdly, and while she couldn’t see the expression on the masked man’s face, Winston nodded sympathetically.

 

The masked man who introduced himself only as Soldier: 76 handed her a photograph as they began to usher her out of the medical room. It was of a woman in a Halloween witch costume, smiling as she posed with friends. He said it was her and that it might help to remember things, so when she took it with trembling hands she wondered (guiltily and ashamed) why she couldn’t even recognise herself.

They walked her to her room (her old room, apparently, from before the recall) and left her there with promises to be there as soon as she called for them. She looked around at the mostly bare and rather dusty room, placing the photograph gingerly on the bedside table. She looked at what was supposed to be her stuff with no recognition, feeling only more frustrated and angry at herself when none of it produced any memories. She closed the door to the room and gave up on trying to force any results from her terrible mess of a brain.

 

Any semblance of peace didn’t last long for her. She sat on the edge of her bed, long hair draping around her like a curtain as she rested her head between her knees. She clutched at her forehead, fingers digging into the metal that was there. She wondered how much of her body was still hers. How much of her had been taken apart and replaced without her knowledge?

She felt like she didn’t belong in her own skin any more. She dug her fingernails around the edges of the metal in her head, trying to dig it out and focusing on the pain of it so she didn’t burst into tears. There was so much to process. So many fragmented memories that pushed through the pressure behind her eyes to try and back up the terrible facts that they’d told her. She swallowed, choking back the gasp of a sob as she tried to work out how much time she’d been left missing.

How many days were gone forever? How much of what she knew was fabricated? Everything felt so real to her, and she had no idea what was apparently Talon’s work in peeling her head open and rummaging around until they constructed a story that she had believed wholeheartedly.

She couldn’t hold back the tears now, crying at the terrible hopelessness and fear of what she had done that welled up and swept through her as the realisation that she would likely never remember the full truth of what had happened to her when she’d been taken by Talon.

She looked up when she heard someone open the door, sniffling as she wiped away the tears that continued to fall down her face, wondering which agent had come by to ogle at the broken doctor and ooze pity out as they condescendingly patted her on the back with a smile and an _it gets better, just trust me_.

It was the cyborg. The one she knew now to be Genji, to have been the one they said she’d saved (rebuilt; dug her hands into and put in wires and cybernetics like Talon had done to her but she’d been driven by desperation and the need for him to _survive_ —she hadn’t wanted to do to him what had happened to her).

“Why are you here?” she asked, her voice croaky from crying and lack of speaking.

“I wanted to see you—to see if you were okay, but I see the answer to that is pretty self-evident,” he replied, gesturing in her general direction.

At least it wasn’t pity. If he’d come in and spouted meaningless platitudes, she would have thrown him out. Instead, she tugged at her sleeves to wipe away any remaining tears and then gestured for him to come in properly.

He probably knew a thing or two about waking up and not being who you used to be. That was why he knew better than the rest; he obviously knew the frustration that welled up when someone patted you on the back and said something terribly cliché when you were trying to rebuild yourself and account for all your missing pieces.

“This is all pretty fucked up,” he said as he sat next to her on the bed. “I know what it’s like. They’re going to expect you to bounce back and be the same as you were before this, but you don’t have to. Don’t pretend. It’s not worth it in the end, Angela.”

She looked at him, at his robotic body and the mask she knew hid his human face (and the memory of it, tinged with fear and panic as she stared at what remained of him as he bled out on her table, rose from the painful fractured mess of her thoughts), and looked back down at the floor.

She didn’t know what to say to that, so she just gingerly leaned against him and tried to push back the Talon-taught panic that surged up as she did so. They sat like that for a while, letting silence fall between them as Mercy tried to figure out a decent response.

“I… I don’t know if I’ll ever really be who I used to be. I mean, I don’t know what can be done about my eyes for one thing,” she said, pointing towards her purple eyes, “but… I want to try to get better. It’s just overwhelming—everyone here knows who I am and what’s happened to me, but I don’t even know what happened to me! It’s… confusing, to say the least. I just need some time for now.”

 

Of course, Sombra knew where Mercy was. It would have been impossible for her not to know at this point with the amount of Talon tech that was plugged into the doctor’s head. She had access to pretty much all of Mercy’s brain and abilities and knew that Talon’s leaders would soon come to her and ask her to commandeer the other woman’s body and force her to return to Talon’s side, one way or the other.

She wondered if she should do it now, before they even asked, to trick the doctor into thinking it was by her own actions and thoughts that she turned on her comrades knowingly and left a bloody trail on her way back to Talon’s clutches. It would certainly be something fun to manipulate into happening; to watch her fight against the programming punched into her and then flounder in her morals once she realised what she’d done.

 _Still_ , she thought idly as she swivelled away from her computer setup, _I’d get more credit if they asked me first_.

She left her monitors running, the various viewpoints of Mercy’s heartfelt conversation with Genji playing out as other cameras showed the layout of the Overwatch base. It had been a rather pleasant surprise to track her down and find that they’d carted her prone body off to an actual base and not just a safehouse they could’ve fled from. All the more useful for Talon, and all the more information for her to hold onto.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi i'm Terrible for not updating this sooner i legit forgot (whoops)  
> also it's 2:30am i have to be up in 5 hours forgive any mistakes i wrote this in various parts so it's a Lil jumpy but i hope u like it regardless  
> hmu on tumblr @ littlemisszuipperpips if u wanna talk about this fic!!  
> i hope it makes sense i just kinda wanted to churn this out so y'all Knew i wasn't giving up on this whoops  
> i feel like it might be a bit jumbled re: mercy figuring out the Truth and accepting it that talon fucked her up but i can always go back in and fix that later lmao


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> me: haha i'll update soon!  
> [5 months pass]  
> me: UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
> 
> anyway. here's some stuff of mercy with the overwatch gang and starting to feel better \\\o//

It was two weeks later that Reaper drifted through the gaps in the door and reformed inside Sombra’s designated workspace. The hacker didn’t bother looking away from her dozens of holographic screens, swiping through news sites and hacked information to wipe away whatever latest mess Talon had left for her to clean up.

“Sombra.”

She waited until he sighed very aggressively (smoke curling out of the holes in his mask) to swivel her chair around with a flourish to face him.

“How can I help, Gabe?” she asked, smiling ever-so-charmingly at him.

He had to visibly restrain himself at the mention of his name, and she smothered her snort of laughter with a not-so-subtle hand over her mouth.

“Talon wants you to find Mercy. We both know you already have, but you have a week to pinpoint her location and pass it on so that we can collect her.”

She nodded at him and spun back around, shoving her previous work off to one side and dragging up the various hacked comms and video feeds she’d collected that gave her a crystal-clear image of what the good doctor was up to. Reaper stood there for a bit, and then once it was clear that she had nothing else to say, he made an exasperated hand motion and then collapsed into a plume of smoke and funnelled back out through the door.

 

During the two weeks before Talon had decided that Mercy’s programming had been confused enough that she wasn’t going to sneak out on her own (or that she was being watched too much to safely get herself out of there), Mercy herself had been trying to recover and shed the tech that had been plugged into her.

The first week had been spent with her being constantly monitored (which was to be expected), with Soldier: 76 watching her from the corner of her room every time that she rejected Ana’s offers of finding her trustworthy surgeons to remove whatever Talon had implanted. She was all too aware that her refusals were putting her on a very tentative and wobbly edge with Overwatch. When Winston came by, he awkwardly tried to explain that it wasn’t personal, it was just that they didn’t want her to turn into Widowmaker.

She didn’t take it personally. She just looked at him with tired and bloodshot eyes and gave him a weak but _hopefully_ reassuring smile. She said that she hadn’t felt any sudden urges to kill everyone, it was just that the thought of going under the knife was too much to handle at the moment.

 

The remnants of Overwatch and the new recruits all took turns watching over her (rather than just letting Soldier: 76 watch over her like he’d been doing previously) to make sure she didn’t suddenly snap or show any suspicious behaviour. After she noticed what was happening and asked Tracer, the other woman had just scratched the back of her head and said it was to keep her company because Mercy probably wouldn’t want to be alone. Mercy just looked at her from the bed, looked down at the cuffs still chaining her to the frame of the bed, and looked back at her pointedly. The Brit had laughed awkwardly at that and didn’t speak for the rest of the visit.

Part of her enjoyed seeing all the different people that were at the base every day, but the rest of her felt overwhelmed to have to keep interacting with new people. When she was trying to sleep, staring at the ceiling, she kept thinking about how Talon hadn’t had any expectations for her to interact and actually have to _talk_ to people outside of missions.

(Thoughts like that were probably why she was under such heavy observation.)

One of the few reprieves were when the Junkers came in to watch over her. It didn’t feel like she was being monitored then, because they (well, mostly Junkrat—Roadhog wasn’t really one for idle conversation, but she could appreciate that) knew what she was like only from their interactions at Talon’s base and on the field. They didn’t know this and that about the illustrious Doctor Angela Ziegler, and they didn’t care to find out. It was nice, to not have that pressure to talk about how her recovery was going and how much she remembered about her past. Junkrat would chatter about all the new bombs he’d been trying to make, and she’d laugh and tell him that she wasn’t going to be able to help him if he blew off another limb, and then he’d keep telling her about all the exciting things that had apparently happened since he and Roadhog had last visited.

 

Another reprieve from the crushing weights and expectations of Overwatch was Zenyatta’s turns to take watch. It was strange, because she didn’t know them—but it was good for that exact reason. Sure, Genji had told them about her at some point (because they recognised her) but they had no expectations of who she was meant to be. She didn’t feel the need to paste on a fake smile and lie through her teeth and say that _yes, of course she remembered that one time they all pulled some silly prank, she was definitely getting better_. She could talk to them very honestly about what she remembered (which wasn’t much) and how she couldn’t sleep because of the horrific dream/memories that kept seeping through whenever she closed her eyes. It was… cathartic. The omnic was able to offer her advice on trying to come to terms with what had been done to her, and offered to meditate with her so that she could have the time to try and pull apart the blurry line between what she knew to be real and what memories or thoughts weren’t actually hers.

She hadn’t taken them up on the offer yet simply because she wanted a break from the terrible burning ache that reared up whenever she dared to start trying to actively remember her life in Overwatch.

 

By the second week, they’d finally allowed her to leave the medical centre and be ushered through the hallways of the base. Someone always quickly accompanied her whenever she stepped out of her old room—not surprising, but occasionally annoying when she desperately needed fresh air and to be alone.

Some of them understood that she didn’t necessarily want them to talk to her and pretend to be her friend still. Some would occasionally persist and try to make conversation as she slunk through to the kitchen at 3am, covered in sweat, but they would give up once they realised that no, she _didn’t_ want to talk about her nightmare.

 

It was during this second week that Soldier: 76 came and visited her when she was sitting alone in her room. She’d been in the process of flipping over any photos that were of the old her (the smiling blonde—sure, she had the look of a soldier in her eyes, but she was a burden in that Mercy felt like Angela was staring her down and demanding for her to be smiling and happy once more) when he knocked on the door. She’d let him in and offered him a seat on her messy bed, closing the door behind him and then quietly sitting down next to him.

“What do you remember of early Overwatch?” he asked her quietly, not looking at her.

“I… remember parts of it. Joining up. I know the woman in the photos is me—I know that, but I don’t remember when or why they were taken. I don’t remember most people. It’s starting to come back to me, but… most of it is still gone.”

He was silent for a few moments, turning to look at her pensively. He seemed to nod to himself, and then he reached up and pulled off his mask. His face had a massive scar ripped across his face, with tired eyes that were familiar. She’d seen that expression on her own face in the mirror on the few times she dared to steal a glance at the unfamiliar self that was reflected there. He looked world-weary; like he’d fought too many battles but he couldn’t lay his aching bones to rest just yet.

She stared at him, studying the angles of his face to see if she could recognise him, but the only familiar part of him were that the colour of his eyes reminded her of a blurry person she couldn’t quite remember.

“I shouldn’t be surprised that you don’t recognise me,” he finally said, smiling wryly at her. “There’s a reason I wear the mask all the time. I used to be the Strike Commander of Overwatch before it was disbanded.”

She opened her mouth as if to say his name (not the name he went by now, but the name that she must’ve known him as many years ago), but it slipped through her fingers and she was forced to close her mouth with a clacking noise.

“My name was Jack. If that helps you at all.”

With that, he put the mask back on, clicking it into place. He stood up and clapped her on the shoulder (which she flinched at, ever so slightly, because she hadn’t been expecting it), and walked back out of her room as if nothing had happened.

She sat, semi-stunned for a moment. Then she pushed herself off the bed and started flipping up the photos of her again, muttering his name under breath and trying to bring back some memory or recognise his features in any of the men in the photos she’d had scattered about the room. When she finally found a photo of her surrounded by what she assumed were the founding members of Overwatch. She stared at them, with trembling fingers that caused the photo frame to shake with her as she tried to place which one of them was Jack.

 

After that, when it was D.Va’s turn to watch over her and make sure she didn’t run off, Mercy was invited to game with the other girl. She raised an eyebrow at the gamer over the shaking glass of water that she had a white-knuckled grip on.

“It’s just that… after fights I find it easier to burn off the adrenaline and all that by playing games. I thought you might appreciate a break from the real world by playing something with me.”

When worded like that, the offer didn’t seem so silly. The former doctor could think of nothing that sounded better than having a reprieve from her own life. Mercy smiled at her and agreed, trailing after the shorter girl, slowly drinking her water.

Despite all the gimmicks and bubbly personality, Hana was still a soldier in the end. While she never went through what Mercy had (and the ideas of what she guessed must have happened for the older woman to look so constantly tired and shut-off made her shiver), she knew that after battles it made it easier to compartmentalise what she’d done by shoving it away and playing video games instead.

Mercy wasn’t any good at the games that Hana offered to play with her (for shaky hands and a permanent jumpiness didn’t often blend well with most games), but they settled for playing simple farming sims that didn’t require agile reflexes.

Lucio eventually joined them, watching them play while he worked on new music. Occasionally he would ask for opinions or suggestions, but Mercy mostly kept quiet and focused on immersing herself in her fake farming life.

 

The next day, she sat in one of the few fenced-off areas outside of the compound itself, idly tugging out blades of grass and shredding them. It was 5am, and she was waiting to watch the sun rise. She needed to see something real that wasn’t the dull greys of the Overwatch base. Genji and Zenyatta sat next to her, silent as they meditated. She’d initially protested their joining her (out of breath, hands shaking as she tried not to gag at the memories of being cut into and pulled apart from the inside) but gave up once they both insisted that they’d been going there to meditate together anyway.

It was soothing. She kept pulling at the grass, shivering in the early morning cold, distracted now from the gaping maw of her nightmares. If anyone else had tried to join her, she might have ended up avoiding the outside and trying to find some semblance of calm within her own room (which was too dark and dusty; too reminiscent of her quarters in the Talon base) and ended up feeling even worse.

This was as close to being alone as she was going to get, and she savoured in it. It was _peaceful_ , listening to the gentle rustle of the trees and the grass in the cold breeze. She blinked slowly (sleepily, though she was determined to stay awake and avoid the mess she knew was waiting for her), letting the breeze make her sway idly. She felt like if she had more moments like these (even though she would be watched throughout such moments) she would be able to find the time to stabilise herself and try to pick through her memories. She felt what was perhaps the first spark of true _hope_ that this whole period would be something she could come back from.

It was such a pleasant experience that when they finished meditating, she asked if they’d be able to meet up another time and purposely come out here to watch the sunrise together. Genji had rather delightedly agreed, and even Zenyatta had sounded pleased by her request. She’d smiled at them gleefully and wondered if this was what happiness felt like. If it felt like what a sunrise was—all warm colours and the slow creeping warmth that pushed away the lingering tendrils of cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok i know my pie hole is a lie hole but i have actually written like 300 words of the next chapter already lmao i Know where this story is going  
> also if i stick to this idea then this fic will also probs be over either in the next chapter or in 2 chapters' time  
> i hope u enjoyed this chapter which was mostly some jumping all over the place time-wise to try and expand on how mercy's been recuperating before the action ramps up again
> 
> as always if u wanna @ me over this fic i'm on tumblr at zenyattta (rather than littlemisszuipperpips- i changed my url lmao) and on twitter at archistrateges  
> comment ur thoughts as well if u like! it makes my day!!


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the end (or the beginning, if you think about it)
> 
> some content warnings:  
> -brief mention of someone forcing mercy to undress (stopped before anything happened but mentioning that in case you would prefer to avoid it. it's only a short mention and has no huge impact on the rest of the chapter.)  
> -brief mention of thoughts of suicide at the very end  
> -more off-screen torture/off-screen gore (specifically stuff involving her eyes at the very start of this chapter but it doesn't go into detail)

Time began to pass, and Mercy thought that she might be able to say she was recovering. She could stare at her reflection in the mirror without flinching, able to tug at her eyebags and dig her nail under her forehead implants routinely each morning until she felt like she was in her body again. Her blonde roots were coming through—something that made her extraordinarily happy (for they were a sign of the old Angela, of the doctor she was beginning to recognise as herself in the photos scattered around the base) and unsettled (because she knew that it would be a long time before she would be able to look like her old self unless she grew brave enough to shave off all the black hair). Her eyes were still a vivid purple, and she knew that was likely never going to change. She would occasionally have flashbacks of what it had felt like to have Talon tattoo her irises purple in the first place, and decided she never wanted to go through that agony again. Even if it meant leaving a permanent mark of this period on her body for the rest of her life.

 

As each day passed, more fragmented memories would begin to surface and demand her attention. For example, she had walked into the medical rooms that had the lights off and suddenly remembered the previously repressed period of time she had spent in Talon’s medical centre with bandages wrapped around her head to cover her eyes while they healed. It was the smell of disinfectant combined with the dark that made her remember it—the sharp sting of chemicals and the pitch-black room dredged up the pain associated with it; it made her stumble out of the room with her palms pressed to her eyes to feel some kind of pressure on them. To try and force herself to stop remembering.

She’d felt somewhat embarrassed to find herself at Soldier: 76’s door, knocking feverishly at his door to ask how he did it—how did he stop remembering the pain from the bomb? How did he look himself in the eye when he passed a mirror? How did he live with what had been done to him?

(How could she live like this? Was there a point to living if it meant that she would always be barraged with an assault of just-remembered past pain?)

Though he was often unwilling to talk about what had happened (even though she knew who he was; even if he’d taken his mask off and told the former doctor that he’d made it through this so she had better make it through as well because he hadn’t gone through hell and back to watch her die), he organised weekly meetings with Ana and her so that they could remember the past and try to clean out old festered wounds.

It helped, to be able to try and dissect the memories she’d rediscovered with them. She could put it under the guise of trying to give them useful information about any of Talon’s potential weaknesses or their future plans, when in truth she was just relaying to them what had happened to her so that she could lay down a semi-verified timeline of her time in the base.

 

She also continued to spend time with the Junkers, even if the others weren’t particularly fond of that. Jack had told her it was simply because they were unknowns that had already worked for Talon—what if they were planning to coordinate to take her back there? The idea had alarmed her, but she trusted her gut when she felt that although they were renowned criminals, even Junkrat and Roadhog were unlikely to keep working with Talon.

She sat in the engineer’s room with Junkrat while he tinkered away, watching idly as he tried to come up with even more outlandish ideas for bombs. She laughed delightedly when Roadhog had shown up to forcibly hoist Junkrat up and out so that the mercenary would have to eat something—until Roadhog had also scooped her up and sat them both down at a table and waited until they’d both eaten something substantial before he allowed them to go back to tinkering.

 

Another addition to her schedule was watching the sunrises with Genji and Zenyatta. It made her feel better when she couldn’t get back to sleep after her nightmares woke her up after a few hours of fitful rest to know that she could lie to herself and say she got up on purpose to go join them while the meditated.

She watched the sunrise bloom, the sky spilling oranges and pinks across the sky, having progressed from her starting position of simply sitting between Genji and Zenyatta to lying down across the dewy grass with her head laying in Genji’s lap (who had noticed, obviously, but had simply ran his fingers idly through her hair as an acknowledgement before continuing to meditate).

When she heard the distant sound of footsteps, she just assumed that it was another Overwatch recruit coming out to tell them to come back inside. She dared to close her eyes, waiting for the sound of someone’s voice before she could be bothered to start getting back up.

It was when she didn’t hear anyone’s voice as the footsteps came closer that she started to get nervous. She opened her eyes again, blinking through the glare of the rising sun, but she couldn’t see anyone. She lifted her head (and Genji moved slightly when she did, lifting his arm so she could get up easier) and looked around, but she couldn’t see anything.

Maybe she was hallucinating it. She’d been seeing things in the corners of her vision sometimes (generally at night—visions of the doctors that she had only begun to remember in horrible jagged flashes standing at the edge of her bed), so she was unsure if she was just hearing things or if there was truly someone there. She felt the terrible heat begin to spread across her forehead, her fingers instinctively going to grab it and then reflexively pulling back upon touching the burning metal pieces in her head.

She opened her mouth to say something to the other two, but something (screaming in her head and forcing her consciousness to cower back as it seeped through her body like lava) forced her to close it and lay back down like nothing was wrong. She tried to resist, straining desperately to try and even twitch her fingers to alert Genji, but she couldn’t.

Then she felt a pulse knock her off his lap, the grass shaking as the pulse rippled through the air. She felt whatever had been stopping her suddenly switch off, and she started screaming once she realised that Genji and Zenyatta weren’t moving, that they had been knocked over by the pulse and switched off as well. It must’ve been some kind of EMP that shut them down—she knew that this meant they weren’t going to be dead (probably), but it didn’t help that Genji had folded over her and was lying on top of her silently.

A woman appeared now—and it took a second to place her, but Mercy realised that this was Sombra. Talon was here, and when Sombra aimed her gun at her she quickly shut up. She couldn’t hear the thrumming of any technology from the base—there was only an unsettling silence that no animal calls were able to fill.

“You’re going to come with me,” Sombra told her with a wide smile, kicking Genji’s (hopefully) unconscious form off her, “and we’re going to upgrade the shitty tech that Talon gave you. Unless you want something a little more permanent to happen to your friends here, okay?”

Mercy silently got to her feet as a hovercraft unshrouded itself behind Sombra, and she let the other woman push her inside of it with the gun pressed against her back. She dared to press her hands against the glass of the window, watching with wide eyes and shaking shoulders as the Overwatch members began to pour out of the building. She saw Tracer beginning to blink towards them, but the hovercraft suddenly sped off before she could reach them.

(She turned her head back to face the seat ahead of her and swallowed. She would not cry, not with Sombra sitting next to her and Talon soldiers staring her down. She could cry later when they took her to the Talon base, because she knew they would give her plenty more reasons to cry.)

 

She was escorted straight to the same wing that she now knew held the torture tools that had broken her in the first place. _Are they going to let me live this time,_ she asked herself as they strapped her to a metal table; when the doctors loomed around her with a variety of scalpels she began to think it might’ve been the better option to ask Sombra to kill her back in the glow of the sunrise. This thought was only reinforced when they began to cut into her body with those scalpels, letting the pain pull her into blessed unconsciousness when they began prying into her forehead to take out the implants.

 

When she next woke up, she wasn’t sure if she was alive or if she’d ended up in Hell. She wouldn’t have been surprised—despite the angel theme and her moniker, she still had just as much blood on her hands and the additional fault of daring to defy the laws of nature to bring people back from the dead.

Yet, she knew she was alive when she felt her heart thrumming in her chest. She silently cursed at her bad luck—Talon should have killed her for running away with their precious tech, but… here she was. _Alive_.

How unfortunate.

She startled when she realised that her body was moving without her consent to—she tilted her head down to check (and yes, she was walking) and then back up to see where she was. She looked like she was in some kind of training room, and she saw Sombra and some scientist-looking individuals sitting at a computer setup nearby. Sombra gave her a cheery wave and then slid her hand along a holographic screen—as she did, Mercy’s head instantly turned back to face straight ahead.

“I’ve upgraded your faulty tech for you—you’ll be able to fully control her on the battlefield. Your personal butler of the healing variety,” she heard Sombra say, but she was unable to turn and see what else was happening in the room.

Unseen to her was Sombra tapping a variety of hologram keys with ease and confidence, and as she typed in commands she and the scientists watched as Mercy’s body followed them without hesitation. Spin, salute, right hook, left hook, and then do the hustle. The hacker let out a snort as she watched the last part, forcing the doctor to dance until she tapped a key and Mercy’s body went slack.

“I’ll key in some simple fighting commands for you, since I’m sure my methods are too complex for you,” she informed them with a wink and a laugh, “but she’s all yours, gentlemen.”

 

Mercy wasn’t sure how long she’d been here. She stood in a corridor, unable to move her body. She watched with burning and watering eyes (for she couldn’t even blink—she’d been lucky that Sombra had seemingly left her ability to breathe alone) as indistinguishable Talon grunts walked by without a second glance her way. Time passed weirdly—in black jumps of periods she could not remember, or slow and agonising in hours like this where she’d clearly been idled without any intention of giving her the free will to occupy herself.

Widowmaker had eventually come through the hallway she was stuck in, and stared at her with a curled lip and a small amount of pity in her yellow eyes. The French sniper tapped a comm to call up Sombra, and after speaking (rather tersely) to the hacker, Mercy’s body loosened up and she closed her aching eyes. She blinked furiously, clenching and unclenching her hands to marvel at the sensation of it. She looked up at Widowmaker from where she’d let herself slump against the wall, gratitude shining like a beacon from the small smile that had started to form.

The sniper simply yanked her up off the floor and began to lead her to the Talon cafeteria so that she could take care of the foolish doctor in ways that the scientists that had control over her clearly hadn’t bothered to. She watched as Mercy choked down food and water, and she quickly squashed the small amount of concern that had begun to brew within her. She was simply making sure the other operative would be useful in a fight—even if someone else was behind the wheel, Mercy would hardly be able to do anything with a malnourished body.

Widowmaker refused to let herself feel anything as she led the other woman to the medical centre to get her hooked up to an IV so she didn’t get any worse.

 

Eventually, it wasn’t just enough that Mercy did everything they ordered her to do. She got strapped back down to that table—and though her memory hazes out—when she woke up she just felt a pervasive numbness that refused to go away even when Widowmaker forced Sombra to give her some control back. Not even punching a wall made her feel anything outside of a distant pain as her the skin on her knuckles split. Everything felt… removed. Like they had scooped out parts of her she thought they couldn’t alter and gave her the bare minimum required to live before they sent her on her way into the compound.

 

Widowmaker still dragged her off to the cafeteria, most days. Sometimes others would join them, but most of the time it was just the two of them. Even the gratitude she’d felt so strongly that first time the sniper had helped her felt distant and unreachable. With fingers that felt nothing and a tongue that didn’t register to her the taste of what she was eating, she let Widowmaker force her to stay alive.

It wasn’t like she could do anything to fight if it came down to it.

 

Any time that wasn’t stolen from her by the people operating her body for her (or when she was granted permission to be herself for a few minutes) was spent sitting listlessly in her room. She’d dared to cover the mirror with her blanket so that she wouldn’t have to look at the physical consequences of what they’d done to her this time. Otherwise she would be forced down to the training arenas, letting the scientists that had her at their beck and call practice their control over her.

The only time anyone had interfered with this was when one scientist dared to punch in a command to make her undress—then Sombra had removed whatever invisibility she had on and pressed her uzi against the back of his head until he revoked the command.

Mercy didn’t feel anything. Her numb fingers just deftly rebuttoned her workout clothes and she stood at attention until the commands to fight resumed.

 

She remembered, quietly in the small space of her consciousness that she was allowed to occupy, that she never did get around to crying after Talon stole her away that second time. They hadn’t let her body heave out the few emotions she had left, and it didn’t look like she would ever be able to.

 

Finally, it came time for her to go out on a mission.

She stood in the transport carrier with dead eyes and steady hands, with the burning sensation in her head muffling any thoughts of disobeying swiftly. The bags under her eyes were terrible, and her eyes themselves were horribly bloodshot. The skin around her implants had cracked and blistered because of the heat generated, and she wondered how it was that she had even managed to stay standing.

(She knew how. She knew that her body wasn’t hers any longer.)

When the aircraft landed outside the city they were planning to raid, she trailed after Reaper and the other Talon soldiers on legs that didn’t follow her own commands. Her knees didn’t buckle when he turned to look at her through his mask, and she did not flinch at the smoke that oozed out of him.

(And Reaper, god help him, had almost felt _bad_ for Mercy when he saw her like this. When he finally began to realise that the person who’d fished him back from the dead and trapped him in this ghoulish form was no longer truly inhabiting the body in front of him. The qualities that had made her Angela Ziegler were no longer there—this was simply a living shell that Talon had complete control of thanks to Sombra’s tweaks to the original implants.)

She flew behind him into battle, staff unwavering and her aim true as she fired indiscriminately at any potential enemies. She felt entirely detached from her own self, watching (tiredly, with no capacity left for horror) as she gunned down civilians with no hesitation.

 

She felt (distantly, as if she were watching a movie of herself fighting rather than actually being here for it) her body twist out of the way of Jack’s helix rockets; she watched as she took aim at his visor—would her bullets be able to crack it and kill him? Would she just end up scarring him like Gabriel had; would she be another discussion over cold cups of tea between him, Ana, and whatever new unfortunate soul had war stories to discuss?

At the moment that she began to pull the trigger, she strained to jerk her hands up to miss—pressing back against the all-encompassing control over her body to try desperately to avoid the bullet finding its mark so she would never know the answer to those questions. When the bullet ricocheted off a wall she felt a great sense of satisfaction that she’d been able to take control of her body for a second, but that swiftly became regret when she felt the control start to seep through her again and she was shunted back to being a third-party viewer of her own body.

 

She was punished for that disobedience later. She knew she would be, but some part of her had dared to hope that maybe Sombra would lie and say it was someone’s faulty commands. It was stupid to think a Talon operative would take pity on her, because of course Sombra told them and she went back for repairs on the dreaded table in the dusty wing.

Widowmaker did not take her to the cafeteria any more. The sniper didn’t even look her in the eyes when she passed her in the corridors on those days where she was forced to stand at attention until someone deigned to program her to take care of herself.

Reaper would drift by her occasionally, hesitating as he caught a glimpse of her empty eyes, before he kept drifting past. They never talked, and she would never know who he really was. She would just follow him into battle, healing him and boosting the effectiveness of his weapons.

 

She never saw the Overwatch team unless they were on the battlefield, but after the first few failed attempts at trying to coax her back into the fold they must’ve given up. She was Talon’s property now—even if they did take her away and take away everything that had been done to her, she wasn’t even sure there was enough of a human left inside her that she wouldn’t just waste away.

 

The few sunrises she could glimpse when the transport crafts would fly them away to their next fight didn’t inspire any hope in her. That brief pondering of happiness and the warmth of the sun felt like they’d been told her to her by someone she didn’t know any more. She would stare at the spilling light across the sky, unable to process why it was that looking at sunrises made her want take the pistol strapped to her side and aim it at her head.

It wasn’t like she could, even if she knew why the urge would always hit her. She jumped when Talon told her to, and she’d die when Talon told her to. There was nothing that anyone could do to change that now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so. mercy's backstory for the devil skin ends.  
> i never imagined this fic would be so long (or take as long to finish lmao fuck my scheduling and inability to write things at a reasonable pace) and i really want to thank everyone who's left kudos and comments. you honestly inspired me to keep trucking to provide u with that Good Devil Mercy Content  
> i hope that i was able to deliver on the finale!!!
> 
> if you wanna @ me over this fic u can find me on tumblr at zenyattta or on twitter at archistrateges
> 
> i also wanna give a special mention to bec (woahrebecca) for being my number one hypeman for getting me to finish this fic (and for getting me to write this in the first place tbh) so ty ty for letting me scream w/ u over this fic. ilysm <3

**Author's Note:**

> listen. i have many Plans for this fic. i hope to god it doesn't turn into a monster fic bc god knows it's been a long time since i wrote fic.  
> also it's like 2am rn forgive the mistakes, let me know if it's a lil clunky or if there's errors and i'll do my best to fix it up before i write more!!  
> basically this fic will likely be summed up by [yilmaz voice] no mercy for stooges  
> i may change the title of the fic as well lmao i couldn't think of anything good


End file.
